Prof. Cao Honored as One of China's 35 Innovators Under 35

Geneva, May 28, 2025 - Dr Pierrick Berruyer.

Since 1999, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review identified young innovators that could shape their fields for decades. Brilant talents are recognized for their advancements in diverse technical fields, including biotechnology and medicine, energy and material, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and telecommunications, intelligent manufacturing, etc. Notable past honorees include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google (2002); and Feng Zhang, a pioneer of CRISPR gene-editing technology (2013).

In 2017, MIT Technology Review introduced TR35 China to spotlight under 35 Chinese innovators with significant influence in science, technology, and industry. Prof. Chan Cao, School of chemistry and biochemistry, Faculty of science, University of Geneva, is featured on the 2025 list in the “Inventors” category.

Established at the University of Geneva in 2023, Prof. Chan Cao's research group specializes in single-molecule bioanalysis, with a focus on nanopore detection. This technique measures electric currents generated as individual molecules pass through nanoscale pores. Nanopore sensing offers key advantages: it requires no labeling or amplification, delivers cost-effective electrical readouts, and supports massive parallelization for high-throughput analysis. Unlike conventional methods, it detects ionic current changes caused by target molecules, enabling molecular information at single-molecule level. It can also analyze complex mixtures without separation, as each molecule has a distinct current signature. The high reproducibility of biological nanopores further allows for the creation of standardized databases using reference samples.

In 2020, while Chan Cao was an PRIMA grantee at EPFL, they demonstrated how nanopore-based technology can be used to read data encoded in synthetic molecules. This approach, which mimics DNA-based data storage, offers a potential solution to growing data storage challenges—especially considering that, in theory, all the data humanity produces in a year could be stored in just 4 grams of DNA. Watch the TEDxTalk.

Nanopore detection: an electric current is generated by the passage of a single molecule through the nanoscale pore. Figure reproduced from ACS Nano 2024, 18, 2, 1504-1515, available under license CC-BY-SA 4.0.

More recently, Prof. Cao and co-workers showed how nanopores technology, along with artificial intelligence, can be used in early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. They demonstrated the detection of various post-translational modifications of alpha-synuclein, a key protein in the development of Parkinson's disease, at very low concentrations. Read about this story. 

In 2024, the Cao group, in collaboration with Prof. De Los Rios (EPFL), used advanced nanopore technology to reveal how Hsp70 chaperone proteins facilitate intracellular protein transport. In both animal and human cells, Hsp70 chaperones play a central role in regulating numerous biological processes, yet their precise molecular mechanism has remained unclear for decades. Using a cutting-edge single-molecule nanopore technique, her team and collaborators uncovered how Hsp70 generates the force required to remodel client proteins—resolving a long-standing scientific debate. The findings were published in Nature Communications. Read more about this story.