Professor Shi Yigong Wins 2017 Future Science Prize

Laureates of the 2017 Future Science Prize,China's first non-governmental science award and regarded by some as the Chinese version of the Nobel Prize, were announced on September 9th. Tsinghua University Professor and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shi Yigong won the Life Science Award for his elucidation of high-resolution structures of the eukaryotic spliceosome,revealing the active-site and the molecular-level mechanism of this key complex in mRNA maturation.

Professor Shi's research has provided important insights into programmed cell death,regulated intramembrane proteolysis, and pre-mRNA splicing. His pioneering research on caspase activation, inhibition, and derepression markedly advanced mechanistic understanding of programmed cell death. He is a world leader in the structural biology of cell signaling and macromolecular assemblies.In 2015, Shi and his team made a landmark discovery in the area of “Central Dogma” by reporting the first three-dimensional structure of an intact yeast spliceosome at 3.6 angstrom resolution. Since then, Shi and his team have made a series of remarkable advances in structural elucidation of several distinct functional states of the spliceosome, which together with achievements from a number of other laboratories,have conceptually advanced the mechanistic understanding of pre-mRNA splicing.

(Edited by Guo Lili)