PostTime：6/30/2026
In 2026, the sixth cohort of undergraduate graduates from Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) is ready to set sail. Armed with the knowledge and courage bestowed by their alma mater, and guided by the belief of "Dream it. Do it.", they have etched their youth in constant exploration and breakthrough. Let us step into their stories, and witness how they take action as wings to wider skies.
Name: Xu Jiaqi
High School: No.3 High School Changzhou
Program: Biotechnology and Food Engineering (BFE)
Awards:
GTIIT Vice Chancellor's List (2024-2025)
GTIIT Leadership Award (2023-2024)
GTIIT Dean's List (2022-2023&2023-2024)
First Prize in the inaugural "Toukong Guolv Cup" Chaoshan Tourism Route Creative Design Competition (2023)
Offers:
University of California, Berkeley (Master's in Translational Medicine, awarded Merit Scholarship)
Johns Hopkins University (Master's in Biomedical Engineering)
GPA: 90.0/100
IELTS Score: 7.5
Over four years at GTIIT, Jiaqi built a formidable academic foundation while growing in ways that went far beyond the classroom. She moved seamlessly between rigorous coursework, research, and extracurricular leadership—building a solid academic foundation while sharpening her self-motivation and organizational skills. With a biologist's lens applied to both science and life, she has charted a steady path from GTIIT to the future.
Find passion through rigorous training
Physics wasn't Jiaqi's strong suit in high school, so she chose biology to play to her strengths. "But classes here completely reshaped me," she recalled. "The English teaching environment and the way professors broke down first principles turned physics from my weakest subject into a strength." Her grades tell the same story: 98 in Fluid Mechanics and a perfect 100 in Process of Biotechnology—two tough physics courses.
What struck her most about BFE program was its breadth, engineering rigor, and early hands-on training. The program integrates biotechnology and food engineering, with five elective tracks spanning biology, bioinformatics, and medical biotech—alongside a heavy dose of engineering courses. "The curriculum trains you to think like an engineer—to quantify, model, and scale up lab-scale reactions to industrial levels." Academic poster sessions start in freshman year; weekly lab reports kick in from sophomore year. Together, they fast-track the development of solid research fundamentals.
Jiaqi (left 1) performed Antifragile with friends on 2024 New Year's Gala
This experience fundamentally reshaped her understanding of biology. Professors bring cutting-edge developments into the classroom, and the combination of foundational knowledge with forward-looking exposure gave her a systematic yet granular perspective. She began applying biological thinking to daily life—regulating her circadian rhythm through light exposure and adopting a 16:8 intermittent fasting routine. "Biology is no longer just test material," she said. "It's a tool for understanding and improving my life."
Forge conviction through independent research
If coursework is the foundation, the lab is where she tested her mettle.
"When everyone can generate computational results with a few clicks of AI, what's truly scarce is no longer computing power—it's insight into the biology itself." In the age of AI, Jiaqi deliberately pivoted from a computation-heavy approach to a "dry-wet closed loop"—she made a point of going to the bench, using real biological samples and data to validate AI predictions. "AI casts a wide net; wet lab work confirms whether the catch is real—turning computational correlations into causal evidence."
This philosophy was fully reflected in her senior thesis. She aimed to bring the engineering mindset of synthetic biology into medical diagnostics by developing an E. coli-based whole-cell biosensor for the low-cost detection of kynurenine—a key biomarker of Alzheimer's disease.
Under Prof. Xu Peng's supervision, Jiaqi tackled the project independently—and challenges came fast. When molecular cloning hit a wall, she and her advisor painstakingly traced every step, only to find a simple error at the root. It was a humbling lesson in the weight of details. Another hurdle was the lack of structural data in the literature—so she taught herself AlphaFold3 and HADDOCK to build protein models through computational prediction. "That was the first time I truly felt the power of AI tools in transforming traditional biology."
Looking back, she said: "The real growth came from figuring out how to break down a complex system, decouple the pieces, and rebuild it. I started developing a gut instinct for closing the wet–dry loop. And I learned that a negative result isn't a dead end—it's just data telling you something." That resilience sealed her commitment to the intersection of synthetic biology and healthcare.
Ready after four years
GTIIT's research training built her technical backbone, while its open, unbounded atmosphere gave her room to push her ambitions, step beyond comfort zones, and cultivate discipline and self-motivation, along with the ability to juggle multiple priorities.
2026 GTIIT Science Education Initiative – Jiaqi (middle) and the team hosted a science lecture at Changxia Primary School (Longteng Campus)
Across various student leadership roles, Jiaqi has been a connector and organizer. As president of GTIIT Association of Commercial Entrepreneur (ACE), she ran on-campus activities such as simulated stock trading competition and industry research competition, as well as took the lead in hosting the Greater Bay Area Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition in 2024, bringing together teams from CUHK-Shenzhen, Shantou University, and Shenzhen University—with coverage on China Education News. As head of the project department of GTIIT Youth Volunteer Association, she coordinated blood drives, donation campaigns, and TCM outreach programs, honing cross-team collaboration. Through a science education initiative, she taught science classes to primary schoolers and felt the weight of passing knowledge to the next generation. As the class life committee member of the first league branch, she served as a bridge between students and the university.
Closing ceremony group photo of 2024 Greater Bay Area Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition, organized by GTIIT ACE and covered by China Education News
In her junior year, she ran four parallel tracks—graduation project, IELTS prep, a GBA entrepreneurship competition, and final exams. Far from buckling under pressure, she thrived. The race against time taught her how to allocate energy and reprioritize, and expanded her sense of her own limits.
Jiaqi described her four years as "step by step, sustained over time." No shortcuts, no overnight leaps—just the cumulative power of small daily wins: reading one more paper, rethinking an experimental design, listening to one more deep-dive podcast, turning one more page of history or philosophy. "It's the accumulated force of these small, consistent efforts over four years that has made me who I am today—calm, grounded, and ready."
2023 Greater Bay Area Innovation Challenge – Jiaqi (left 3) collaborated with students from MUST, HIT, Peking University HSBC Business School, Moscow State University and CUHK-Shenzhen
Looking ahead, she plans to dive deeper into the intersection of biotech innovation and commercialization, pushing diagnostic technologies from lab to clinic. "I know the road ahead won't get any easier. But after four years at GTIIT, I've been tested enough to know I can handle whatever comes next."
