Xin Jin named one of 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review

Recognizing outstanding innovators younger than 35, the annual list examines not just where technology is now, but where it’s going and who’s taking it there.

June 29, 2022

LA JOLLA, CA—Scripps Research neuroscientist Xin Jin, PhD, has been selected for this year’s prestigious 35 Innovators Under 35 list, showcased by MIT Technology Review, for her development of gene-editing tools to understand the mechanistic origins of human diseases.

The list represents the search for individuals’ technical work that promises to shape the coming decades, acknowledging the development of new technology or the creative application of existing technologies to solve major challenges across various domains. Alongside neighboring innovators in biotechnology and medicine on the list, Jin joins others that span the fields of materials, computer hardware, energy, transportation, communications and the internet.

“It is a great honor to be part of this list among inventors, innovators, and thinkers across disciplines,” says Jin, who is an assistant professor at Scripps Research. “I am particularly excited to be a bioengineer and neuroscientist at this time, as the combined forces can really make a lot of impact in this space to decode the genetic basis of human biology and diseases.”

Jin’s research advances the understanding of how genetics and physiology interact during brain development. Through developing a genetic screen system called Perturb-Seq, Jin has discovered new potential functions across a set of autism-related genes in neurons and supporting cells in the brain called glia. The sophisticated genetic engineering technology established by Jin provides high-resolution insights of how various mutations impact brain function and related developmental disabilities, in particular autism spectrum disorder.

Jin earned her doctorate in biology at The Rockefeller University. She then worked as a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, before becoming a faculty member of Scripps Research in 2021.

In addition to the Innovators Under 35 list, Jin has earned numerous other awards and fellowships, including the Early Career Investigator Award from the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), the Simons Foundation Collaborative Grant, a Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, an Allison Doupe Fellowship from the McKnight Foundation, an Intersections Science Fellow Award, a Presidential Member Award from the Genetics Society of America, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International predoctoral fellowship for graduate work.

Every year, more than 500 people are nominated for the Innovators Under 35 list, and from this group the editors pick the most promising 100 candidates to move on to the semifinalist round. Their work is then evaluated by a panel of judges who have expertise in the relevant fields, after which the editors pick the final select list of 35.

The global winners of the Innovators Under 35 list will be featured in the July/August 2022 issue of MIT Technology Review and recognized at the Emtech MIT conference in the fall.

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