The “Centre for Plant Vacuole Biology and Biotechnology”, led by Professor Jiang Liwen, Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Science and Choh-Ming Li Professor of Life Sciences, has recently been awarded over HK$75 million from the Areas of Excellence Scheme, a scheme of the Research Grants Council of the University Grants Committee. The research team of the Centre aims to illustrate the fundamental processes of vacuole biology and biotechnology, to develop new technologies to enhance crop resilience with productivity, and to provide comprehensive training programs for young scientists. The project “Optimizing Early Childhood Development of Children from Low-Resource Settings by Leveraging Technology and Biological Data”, led by Professor Wong Chun Man Patrick, Associate Vice-President (Research) and Stanley Ho Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, which is considered a potentially ground-breaking and highly-original research, has received HK$10 million as an exploratory project with one-year budget to yield preliminary results. Our heartfelt congratulations!