“We no longer consider publishing this paper on Nature”, which is an e-mail to the project team of Zhao Yan from Nature before the Spring Festival of 2024 bringing bad news. Zhao Yan still could not believe it, since they received positive comments from the last round of review editors and reviewers.

To their surprise, Hu Tuo and Yu Zhuoya, as co-first authors and post-95s generation, were more big-hearted than their mentor from post-85s generation. After tidying up the mood, Hu Tuo went to supplement experiments the next day.

On July 31, this paper finally published on Nature. For only half a year, Zhao Yan’s project team has published two papers on Nature and one paper on Cell, as well as other papers on Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Cell Research, etc.

How did this team with younger generation achieve such great success?

The real research never ends up in publication on top-level journals

Zhao Yan’s team has focused on the molecular mechanism of neural signal transmission. Synapse as the basic structural unit contributing to transmitting information between neurons is one of the main research objects. They revealed the mechanism of action of glycine transporter GlyT1 and antipsychotic candidate drugs, the transport regulation mechanism of choline transporter CHT1, the substrate recognition and proton coupling mechanism of transporter VMAT2 involved in the storage of monoamine neurotransmitters in vesicles…

“It’s more important to tell a complete story than publish a paper.” Zhao Yan thought structural biologist should make breakthroughs from the structure, and to solve problems that people concern about. Therefore, the project team will not end with publication in top-level journals, and their real dream is to promote the development of new drugs that benefit patients with nerve system-related diseases.

Making time for getting married during the reviewing time

For the paper recently published on Nature and the paper published on Cell in March, Hu Tuo acts as the co-first author. At the critical moment of the two papers in review, Hu Tuo also prepared for marriage. Zhao Yan also discussed the experimental plan with Hu Tuo efficiently, and arranged others to help the work. 

The review process of the paper submitted to Cell went well, while that to Nature met many obstacles and encountered “rejection” in the middle of the process. Zhao Yan then consulted several seniors, and appropriately replied the rejection e-main, ultimately winning a chance of resuscitation. After adjusting mental attitude, Zhao Yan gave the perfect answers to the questions of reviewers.

On April 9, Zhao Yan’s team submitted to Nature editorial office again and the paper was successfully accepted this time.

“Passion” runs through the whole academic career

Zhao Yan said he was impressed by the environment of scientific research in institute of biophysics, which therefore was his first career choice when came back to China. In 2020, he returned as a full-time worker and became a young and independent principal investigator. However, new challenges come one after another, such as how to obtain sufficient expenditure, how to effectively manage a team…

The average age of this newly found project team is less than 30 years. Zhao Yan encourages students to express opinions and provokes their passion on scientific research. Under the guidance of Zhao Yan, several students have shown their talents. For example, Wei Yiqing, an author of the paper published on Cello n March this year is a first-year PhD student, and Li Renjie and Meng Yufei, co-first authors, are post-00s master’s students.

Now, Zhao Yan’s team still recruits new members to expand the team. When it comes to the criterion for new members, Zhao Yan concludes it as “passion”, a word running through the academic career of Zhao Yan.