The All-China Women's Federation recently held a meeting in Beijing, to commemorate the International Women's Day and honor China’s female role models. 

A total of 310 individuals and 200 groups were awarded at the event. 

Wang Hongyan, secretary-general of the Female Scientists Academic Subgroup of the Biophysical Society of China (BSC), was granted the title of National March 8 Red-banner Holder, a national honor for outstanding women. 

Wang Hongyan 

Wang is a professor at the Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, executive vice-director of the Institute of Reproduction and Development, vice-director of the Institute of Metabolism & Integrative Biology, and principal investigator at the School of Life Sciences of the university. 

Wang graduated from Shaanxi Normal University with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1989, a PhD in neurobiology from the Shanghai Brain Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999, and did postdoctoral studies at the Monell Chemical Senses Center from 1999 to 2001. 

From 2002 to 2006, she worked as a research assistant at the Center for Research on Reproduction and Women’s Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In May 2007, she joined Fudan University as a distinguished professor and doctoral supervisor, and has been working there ever since. In 2010, Wang was financed by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and in 2012, she was appointed as chief scientist for the 973 project on birth defects research. 

Wang mainly studies the genetic causes and molecular mechanisms of major birth defects, including congenital heart disease and neural tube defects. She is proficient in genome structural variation, detection and functional analysis of pathogenic gene mutations, as well as research on the regulation of gene expression by epigenetic modifications.

She also aims to elucidate the genetic basis of metabolic imbalances, such as folate deficiency, and the molecular mechanisms of how it affects developmental signaling pathways which lead to birth defects.