At the 14th Annual Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship for College Students hosted by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education from December 10 to 12, four academic papers by Tongji University students made to the finals. They were "Effectively Intervening Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition of Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells with Combination of ROCK and TGF-β Signaling Inhibitors" (referred to as the Transition paper hereafter), "Performance Optimization of Flow-Electrode Capacitive Deionization Technology with Focus on the Resource Utilization of Toilet Wastewater", "Reconfigurable Modular Robots", and "Multifunctional Water Environment Monitoring and Cleaning Robot for Aquaculture in Small Mariculture Areas". Among them, the Transition paper by WANG Longfei, WANG Lei, KANG Ziwei, CHANG Tingzhen, and CHEN Yi who performed well in the online defense, won the "Outstanding Academic Paper" award (out of 20 papers). Their supervisors GAO Furong and XU Jingying won the "Outstanding Academic Paper Supervisor" award.
Winners of "Outstanding Academic Paper" award
Their research explores a new path of epithelial-mesenchymal transition of retinal pigment epithelial cells and develops an improved therapy for proliferative retinal diseases. With the joint efforts of supervisors and students, their Transition paper was published on Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. In the 7th China International College Student Internet+ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the project "EyeNKBT--the Pilot of Prevention and Treatment of the Blinding Disease" conducted by the core team members won the golden prize.
The annual conference with the theme of Exploring to Make Breakthroughs contained three parts of academic papers, projects, and project promotions. The conference attracted 900 students and teachers from more than 250 colleges and universities in 30 provinces (cities and autonomous regions), representatives of the Ministry of Education, local education authorities, experts of the "National Training Program for College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship", and industry representatives. The conference received 847 recommended projects from colleges, universities, and local education authorities, among which 199 academic papers, 250 experience exchange projects, and 65 entrepreneurship promotion projects (514 projects in total) won admission to the conference.
Tongji University advocates innovation and entrepreneurship education reform, integrates the reform with talent training programs, and promotes the integration of innovation and ideology education to improve student ability of innovation and entrepreneurship. Moreover, Tongji cooperates with platforms including 25 college student innovation centers and college student innovation clubs to realize a full-chain management of innovation and entrepreneurship. This chain covers three levels of national, Shanghai, and Tongji University. It strives for the whole process management of students' national, Shanghai innovation programs and Student Innovation Training Programs of Tongji. Tongji also encourages teachers to initiate academic projects and guide students in their choice for appropriate projects. The university builds platforms, creates mechanisms, delivers lectures to help with the projects. Meanwhile, Tongji encourages teachers to offer innovative courses, carry out exploratory research, and conduct new interdisciplinary practices by taking advantage of its strong disciplines. The University is committed to cultivating student pioneering spirit and practical ability, and to developing an innovative and entrepreneurial atmosphere of "daring to venture and innovate".
https://news.tongji.edu.cn/info/1003/79618.htm
