Wang Wenchao, molecular biology researcher. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Getting teammates

The high-magnetic field laboratory has two research tracks: life sciences and material physics. Wang was appointed to head the life sciences department shortly after he joined the lab.

Wang needed to put together a team and he soon thought of Liu Qingsong, who went to Harvard Medical School in 2006, two years after Wang.

With his background in chemistry, Liu, 39, did post-doctoral research on medicine at Harvard. He later became a researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Wang told Liu about the lab. Liu organized a group of Chinese scholars to return to China.

In 2010, the group first visited universities in Shanghai. They then boarded a high-speed train to Hefei and headed for Science Island.

"We also met Kuang, and he told us about his return from Germany when he was 32 to build China's own tokamak, the nuclear-fusion installation," says Liu.

"He told us that they worked on it for three years but failed. But they didn't give up and succeeded one year later.

"I was truly inspired by Kuang. And I thought that this is the place to make things happen."