A research team headed by Prof. Wu Haibin from the State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy of ECNU realized a coupled-mode nanomechanical heat engine in a cavity optomechanical system. This is of great significance for the study of stochastic and quantum heat engines in small systems. The achievement was published in Science in December 2021 with the title of "Realization of a coupled-mode heat engine with cavity-mediated nanoresonators."

Prof. Fang Junfeng from the School of Physics and Electronic Sciences has achieved breakthrough scientific research in perovskite solar cells. The achievement was published in Science in January 2022 with the title of "Constructing heterojunctions by surface sulfidation for efficient inverted perovskite solar cells." The research was evaluated by the reviewer of Science as: “novel and impressive”, highest record efficiency in inverted PSCs”, “provided new insight into efficient inverted PSCs”, and “greatly promote the further development of inverted PSCs”.

Researcher Ma Xinran and Xu Linyan from the School of Life Sciences have found that local hyperthermia therapy, which involves applying heat to a small tissue, can help treat obesity and improve metabolic disorders. "Local hyperthermia therapy induces browning of white fat and treats obesity" was published in Cell as a cover story.

Led by Prof. Liu Mingyao from the School of Life Sciences, the ECNU team published a research article titled "Non-viral, specifically targeted CAR-T cells achieve high safety and efficacy in B-NHL" in Nature. The team successfully developed a two-in-one approach to generate non-viral, gene-specific targeted CAR-T cells through CRISPR–Cas9. This is the best clinical result so far in the global CAR-T cell therapy for refractory and relapsed lymphoma with high remission rate and low toxicity, marking that Chinese scientists are in an internationally leading position in the field of CAR-T cell research, development, and clinical translation.

Science published the latest results of Li Chao's research group from the School of Life Sciences. Titled "PCP-B class pollen coat proteins are key regulators of the hydration checkpoint in Arabidopsis thaliana pollen-stigma interactions", the study takes Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant in the cruciferous family, as the research object, and reveals the molecular mechanism of pollen-stigma mutual recognition. Therefore, in the field of plant reproductive development, the root cause of flowering plant recognition of pollen of this species is cracked for the first time while it is rejecting pollen of other species.

Prof. David A. Leigh’s team from the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering has made breakthrough progress in molecular topology. Related research result titled "Tying different knots in a molecular strand" was published in Nature. His team used transition metal ions and lanthanide metal ions as the orthogonal templates on a molecular chain to construct a molecular knot 52 by means of pointchirality.

Prof. Ye Lan, from the Department of Education Science, published Life-Practice Educology: A Contemporary Chinese Theory of Education. It presents the theory of a contemporary Chinese school of Educology and a fully formulated view on Life-Practice School of Educology and expounds on current thinking in China that denies the independence of educology as a discipline. Since its publication in 2015, the book has won successively awards, including the first prize of Shanghai Philosophy and Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award, and the first prize of National Educational Science Research Outstanding Achievement Award.

Prof. Yanf Guorong, from the Department of Philosophy, is one of the most prominent Chinese philosophers working today and is best known for using the full range of Chinese philosophical resources in connection with the thought of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. In The Mutual Cultivation of Self and Things: A Contemporary Chinese Philosophy of the Meaning of Being, Prof. Yang grapples with the philosophical problem of how the complexly interwoven nature of things and being relates to human nature, values, affairs, and facts, and ultimately creates a world of meaning. This book has won Shanghai Social Science Achievement Award and Outstanding Achievement Award presented by Ministry of Education.