On November 16th, 2018, Dr. Vincenzo De Luca invited me to visit his lab at Brock University. By then, I just started my independent research lab in the University at Buffalo, SUNY. I had no prior publications in the plant natural product research field as a graduate student or a postdoc. However, I steadfastly believed in plants’ magnificent healing power since my family used to give me traditional Chinese medicine when I was sick. I was very grateful for Dr. De Luca’s warm invitation as I was this new kid in the block and he was a well-respected expert who I secretly admired from reading his papers. In Dr. De Luca’s greenhouse filled with beautiful blossoms of periwinkle, the plant that produces the anti-cancer drug vinblastine and vincristine, I asked him which professional conferences he would recommend, he highly recommended the Phytochemical Society of North America to me. That was the first time I learned about PSNA.

Fast forward three years, after my lab gathered some preliminary data on identifying genes responsible for producing digoxin, an essential drug for heart failure, in foxglove plants, my graduate student Emily Carroll presented these freshly collected data in her poster on the 2021 PSNA meeting (virtually). She won the best poster award! That award was the very first recognition of our work. She and I felt tremendously supported by the nurturing community of PSNA. After the meeting, Emily returned to lab with refreshed enthusiasm, while I started my long journey to submitting proposals to fund our research.

I didn’t have any success with my proposals for another two years, so I attended the 2022 PSNA meeting virtually to save the last bit of startup fund for research. However, Emily’s progress was robust; she identified the first and the rate-limiting enzyme for digoxin biosynthesis, cytochrome P450 steroid side-chain cleaving enzyme, which had been obscure for half a century since the 70’s. This work opened the door to elucidate the entire digoxin biosynthetic pathway and laid the ground work for producing digoxin analogs in microbes.

In early 2023, I started to get nervous about my upcoming tenure evaluation in the fall since I still hadn’t secured any funding. That was when Dr. Li Tian nominated me for the Arthur Neish Young Investigator Award. I was extremely grateful for this nomination. In hindsight, this nomination was followed by a string of wonderful events in the next few months. On April 10th, Dr. Hiroshi Maeda, the Chair of the PSNA Award Committee, notified me I got the award! The email knocked me off my chair! I was filled with gratitude for the entire day. What followed a week later was that the National Science Foundation finally decided to fund my research. Two months later, Emily’s paper was accepted by Nature Communications. In August, I won another grant from the National Institute of Health. In mid-July, I received the Arthur Neish Young Investigator Award with Drs. Benjamin Lichman, Peter Lundquist, and Gaurav Moghe during the 2024 PSNA annual symposium at Michigan State University. It was so much fun to interact with them and connect with like-minded people. Thanks to the PSNA community, I found my professional home.

Earlier this year, before my tenure dossier was submitted to the College for evaluation, I learned from my Department Chair’s letter that many external letters from experts in my field pointed out that I received the PSNA Arthur Neish Young Investigator Award, which speaks loud for the prestige of PSNA awards. I am truly grateful to the PSNA community, which has given tremendous support, inspiration, and encouragement to early-career scientists like me. I feel obligated to give back by serving on the PSNA Young Members Committee and wish to carry the baton to support PSNA and nurture the next generation of phytochemists.