People

Tong has demonstrated a keen interest in biology since 2018, dating back to her high school years. Despite the absence of formal scientific training, she proactively sought guidance from Ms. Xinhua Gao, her biology teacher at Shanghai Weiyu High School, who first inspired her passion for the field. Under Ms. Gao’s guidance, Tong designed and executed her first research project, Power Generation by Chlorophyll. Later, Tong followed in Ms. Gao’s footsteps, earning admission to the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University, to formally start her scientific journey.

Tong joined Prof. Dr. Wenbo Bu’s lab at Fudan University as an undergraduate in 2020 and later continued her Ph.D. training there. Under the supervision of Dr. Huiyan Li, Tong contributed to research on selenoprotein-targeted therapies for glioblastoma. Through this project, she mastered fundamental wet-lab techniques and bioinformatics methods while deepening her understanding of glioblastoma biology and the biochemical properties of proteins. Owing to Prof. Bu’s open-minded mentorship, Tong was encouraged to further explore ideas inspired by her earlier work. Therefore, she started to investigate the interactions between glioma cell and the tumor microenvironment (TME), as well as explore novel therapeutic targets for gliomas.

In 2025, while investigating metabolic targets in gliomas, Tong learned that Dr. Xuhang Li would return to the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University as a distinguished alumnus to present his systems-level research on metabolic wiring and rewiring. Seizing this opportunity, she excitedly shared her idea with Dr. Li, which fortunately captured his interest. Following multiple in-depth discussions, Tong became a joint Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Li and Prof. Bu. Under their joint mentorship, she will explore interactions between glioma cells and the TME, as well as develop novel therapeutic strategies for gliomas.