Pic story: scientist gives up high-paying jobs in U.S. to carry out research in China

Zhou Xin checks the condition of a patient to be tested at a laboratory at Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, April 18, 2019. Professor Zhou Xin is the deputy director of Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and National Center for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan. He is interested in ultrasensitive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instruments, techniques and methodology as well as biosensors for medical imaging. In 2019, his group, which consists of about fifty members, independently designed and developed the hyperpolarized lung gas MRI instrument, providing an effective method of lighting up the lungs. Core indicators of the system have reached world leading level in the industry. This quantitative, accurate and visualized lung disease detecting method, without the side effects of invasion and radioactivity, has offered a new imaging technique for the diagnosis of early lung diseases. Back in 2009, Zhou was selected by the "Hundred Talents Program" of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Instead of accepting the opportunity of high-paying jobs in the United States, Zhou returned to China to carry out research alone on human lung MRI instrument in cramped conditions. Zhou, who was born in the same year when the reform and opening up was launched in 1978, said he made the right decision to return to China after reviewing his life and work in the past decade. Born in the right time and striving for one's aspiration can achieve a great life, said Zhou. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)