Zhou Hanzhang, aspiring scientist among A*STAR Graduate Scholarship recipients
Zhou Hanzhang, class of 2021 FST graduate has been awarded the A*STAR Graduate Scholarship (Integrative Sciences & Engineering). She will be pursuing her Ph. D. at NUS Integrative Science & Engineering Programme (ISEP) in collaboration with NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Department of Physiology.
As an aspiring food scientist, she seeks to apply novel food technology and biotechnology to recreate the meat consumption experience. By exploring the use of plant-derived decellularized scaffold and serum-free growth media to support the growth of animal muscle stem cells, she seeks to design new methods to produce meat in a sustainable and clean way for the betterment of the environment and human health. By probing the nature of meat texture and flavor, she hopes to capture the essence of sensory response in human meat consumption experience and to recreate it in clean meat products for more consumers to accept the flavour.
“I appreciate the training I got from NUS FST, it taught me not only how to do research, but more importantly how to tackle a difficult research problem in a systematic way. My years of study in NUS FST was colourful that I was lucky enough to delve into different aspects of FST. Professor Zhou Weibiao was my UROPS supervisor when I was in Year 1. Then, I learnt so much about the analytical chemistry and data analysis. In Year 3, I got a taste of 3D bioprinting and cell culturing research when I worked as an intern in Associate Professor Huang Dejian’s laboratory. This inspired me to venture into the clean meat area as my Ph. D. topic. In my final year, I was lucky enough to study under the supervision of Assistant Professor Kim Jung Eun, who taught me so much about clinical nutrition and lipid metabolism in human body. I cherish all these learning experiences, and I believe that at some point of my life, these dots will connect to allow me to contribute to the research world. Looking back, I will never be thankful enough for the training I got from NUS FST. Thank you, NUS FST!” – Zhou Hanzhang