Recently, after a strict evaluation by the European Research Council, Dr. Zhao Fei, a distinguished research fellow at our College of Pharmacy, received funding from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship under the European Union's Horizon Europe 2021-2027 Research and Innovation Framework, with a total score of 94.4/100. The funded project, "Bio- & Photo-Catalytic Methods for the Construction of Enantiomerically Pure C-S Bonds in Thiols and Sulphides," has been granted EUR 225,000 or approximately RMB 1.7 million, with a funding duration of two years. Under the funding, Dr. Zhao Fei obtained the “UK Global Talent Visa”and will conduct research on the construction of chiral C-S bonds catalyzed by photo/enzyme at University College London (ranked 8th in the QS World University Rankings 2023) and King's College London (ranked 37th in the QS World University Rankings 2023). This study aims to provide a biocatalytic approach for constructing chiral C-S bonds.

News link:

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, named after the two-time Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie, is a series of key scientific research funds established by the European Commission. It is one of the most competitive and prestigious talent programs for research and innovation in Europe. The program, together with the Humboldt Research Fellowship from Germany and the Newton International Fellowship from the UK, is listed among the three outstanding talent programs in Europe. It is one of the highest awards for individual scientific research funded by the EU and enjoys a high international reputation that aims to attract outstanding scholars from all over the world to Europe to do scientific research. It also aims to cultivate young top-notch talents and promote discipline progress. The program is accessible to all and competition is fierce globally. According to the latest statistics of the European Research Executive Agency, the fund for basic science only accounts for about 14% of the world's total.

Dr. Zhao Fei joined Chengdu University in July 2015 and currently serves as a distinguished research fellow at the College of Pharmacy. He is a distinguished expert in Sichuan Province's Tianfu Emei Fellowship and Chengdu City's Chengdu Talent Fellowship. To date, he has led 12 funded projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Youth Fund, the General Program of Sichuan Province's Science and Technology Program, the Sichuan Province's Tianfu Emei Fellowship, the Chengdu City's Chengdu Talent Fellowship, the Zhejiang Province's Basic Public Welfare Research Program, the open topic project of the National Key Laboratory of New Drug Research, and the Talent Introduction Project for Scientific Research Startup at Chengdu University. He has published 32 SCI papers as the first or corresponding author in top international academic journals and has applied for 8 Chinese invention patents, with 2 of them being granted. Dr. Zhao Fei's successful application for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship showcases Chengdu University's ongoing efforts to strengthen its talent pool and promote international academic exchanges and cooperation among young faculty members, which have been yielding positive results in recent years.