Recently, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) announced the results of the 2024 concentrated application period. Shenzhen Polytechnic University has been awarded 15 project grants with a total funding of 6.6 million CNY, marking the highest number of projects and funding received in its history. Notably, Dr. Xu Lei from the School of Electronics and Communication Engineering received an Excellent Youth Fund grant for his project titled “Intelligent Computation of Biological Sequence Data,” marking the first time the university has secured funding in this category. Additionally, Dr. Wang Hao from the Hoffman Advanced Materials Research Institute and Dr. Niu Mengting from the School of Electronics and Communication Engineering were awarded general project grants, while Dr. Wang Sai and 12 other doctoral researchers from the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering received Youth Fund grants.

Dr. Xu Lei joined Shenzhen Polytechnic University in 2015 as a faculty member in the Computer Network Technology program. He has long focused on the intelligent computation methods for biological sequence data. Addressing issues in biological sequence data analysis, Dr. Xu has developed feature representation methods for functional mining, a robust sequence function recognition model, and interpretable sequence analysis methods. With this new Excellent Youth Science Fund grant, Dr. Xu and his team will extend their research from single-omics data analysis models to multi-omics data analysis, focusing on the challenging but critical issue of verifying the link between circRNA and cancer. Their research aims to develop predictive models for circRNA and cancer gene interactions, further elucidating cancer mechanisms and enhancing the application of artificial intelligence theories and methods in medicine, thereby providing support for clinical practice.

In recent years, the university has adhered to a practical and ambitious research orientation, vigorously promoting innovation in research mechanisms, strengthening fundamental and applied research, and encouraging faculty, particularly junior faculty, to actively engage in scientific research. This has led to the cultivation of a strong cohort of mid-career and young research talents. The university’s research strength has significantly improved, with the number of NSFC grants exceeding ten annually for five consecutive years, placing it among the leading institutions in its category.

(Research Office)