The final of the 2025 "Challenge Cup" China Youth Science and Technology Innovation "Open Competition" Arena in the field of biomedicine was held from September 27 to 29 in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Weijun Yang, a young faculty member of our school, participated in the "open competition" for Challenge No. 9: HT-09 Wanhua Hexiang Group Co., Ltd. — New Technologies and New Product Development Competition for High-Value Utilization of Agricultural Straw. His entry was titled:Development and Application of High-Performance Biomedical Novel Materials Based on Straw-Derived Lignocellulose. Following rigorous selection processes including qualification review, preliminary evaluation, and the final arena competition, under the supervision of national notary personnel, the competition organizing committee completed the award assessment. Mr. Yang ultimately won the First Prize in the Young Scientific and Technological Talents Track, the highest award in this track for the challenge, marking a new breakthrough for our school in this competition.

The "Open Competition" Arena was co-organized by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the Ministry of Education, the China Association for Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the All-China Students' Federation, and hosted by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Hohhot Municipal People's Government. Centered on the theme "Youth Taking Responsibility for Chinese Modernization," the competition has attracted widespread attention from universities, research institutions, biomedical companies, and news media across the country since its launch. More than 10,000 students and young scientific and technological talents from 256 universities nationwide, including Tsinghua University, Fudan University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, participated. Ultimately, 279 teams with over 800 students and young scientific and technological talents competed in the final. The competition focused on cutting-edge biomedical technology, releasing 15 challenge topics covering areas such as animal vaccines, bio-fermentation, and synthetic biology, precisely targeting numerous technical bottlenecks in the field, thereby injecting dynamic youthful energy into the high-quality development of China's biomedical industry.

First Prize Award Ceremony

Weijun Yang receiving the award