Hu Hailan is pictured at a laboratory in Zhejiang University. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]
The Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and the All-China Women's Federation published the list of the 10 "Most Beautiful Female Strivers" on March 7 to celebrate International Women's Day which fell on March 8.
Zhejiang University professor Hu Hailan is among those on the list.
Hu, born in Dongyang, Zhejiang province, in 1973, received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at Peking University in 1996 and obtained her doctorate in neurobiology at the University of California Berkley in 2002. She worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the United States before returning to China and landing a research post at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2008.
Hu joined the faculty of Zhejiang University in 2015 and currently heads the university's neuroscience center.
In 2019, the International Brian Research Organization (IBRO) awarded Hu the IBRO-Kemali International Prize for her research in basic and clinical neurosciences. According to IBRO, the award is a "recognition of her impressive work on fundamental neurobiological mechanisms of emotional and affective behaviors based on very advanced, state-of-the-art methodologies, which she helped develop".
Hu was the first scholar outside of Europe and North America to win the award since its inception in 1998.
In 2021, Hu was conferred the 2022 L'Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Awards.
The award described her as having revolutionized the world's understanding of social emotional behavior and mental disorders. It also noted that her groundbreaking work had deciphered the mechanism of depression and informed the development of next-generation antidepressants.
