On December 19^th, 2020, Dr. Jun Yao, a PI of Tsinghua-IDG/McGovern institute for Brain Research, was awarded the 14th WuXi AppTec Life Science and Chemistry Awards. Dr. Jun Yao’s group has been investigating the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorder. Dr. Yao has described a new strategy for investigating the origins of bipolar disorder (BD) as the result of deficits in multiple genes, and elucidated that the Syt7 molecular pathway is key for the pathogenesis and inheritability of BD. Recently, Dr. Yao’s group has discovered one important mechanism underlying the Syt7 deficit-induced manic mood. In 2019, Dr. Yao was shortlisted for the Nature Research Awards for Driving Global Impact, which was held by Nature.