[Message from the editor: Recently, Dr. Hyeon Jeong Lee at the Zhejiang University College of Biomedical Engineering & Instrument Science was awarded with the title of MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Asia Pacific 2021. In this interview, she introduced her research and shared her insights into innovation.]
Quotes from the interview:
- Innovation requires creativity and combination of different disciplines. So that means you need to learn new things and get into new fields and get out of your comfort zone constantly to implement these new ideas into action.
- So, what I did was I actively seek help from our collaborators, learning all the way from how to culture neurons, how to set up this patch clamp device, how to do the experiments, analyze data and even the fundamental behind this technique and neuroscience field.
- Make sure this path is something you really believe in, and devote yourself completely. And at the same time, put efforts to make a team. Because you are not alone, many things require teamwork to accomplish.
- Zhejiang University will listen to needs from the PIs and researchers regarding their career development and also research projects and try to make changes, becoming the pioneers. Actually, Hangzhou city is similar in that way too. The city has many advanced thinking and a lot of emphasis on promoting development of new technologies.