A team of undergraduate students from Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) won the gold award at the recent national finals of the 12th China Undergraduate Medical Innovation Tournament and The Belt and Road International Competition with their project "Construction of an ADE-Escaping Zika Virus mRNA Vaccine".

The team also received the competition's Best Team Cooperation Award.

This marks BIT's first gold award at the national finals of this national-level medical innovation competition, achieving a historic breakthrough for the university

Centering on public health needs and the development of novel vaccines, the BIT team focused on a key medical challenge in Zika virus prevention and control — the long-standing bottleneck of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) in vaccine development.

With a clear technical approach and solid experimental data, the team stood out among competitors and claimed the gold award at the national finals. The achievement fully demonstrates the strong research competence, rigorous scientific spirit and outstanding innovation, and practice capabilities of students in the biotechnology program, and represents another important outcome of BIT's ongoing efforts to cultivate innovative talent in biology and medicine.

A national class-A competition listed in the Competition Catalog of the China Association of Higher Education, the competition has long focused on frontier issues in the medical field and the cultivation of students’ innovation and practical abilities, and enjoys high influence among medical students nationwide.

Looking ahead, BIT will build on its strengths in the disciplines of life science and medicine, and leverage national-level medical innovation competitions to continuously cultivate top-notch innovative talent for original innovation in life sciences and medicine.