Xiaowei was awarded a 2019 prize “for discovering hidden structures in cells by developing super-resolution imaging – a method that transcends the fundamental spatial resolution limit of light microscopy.”

From the Breakthrough Prize website: In her lab at Harvard University, she invented a super-resolution imaging method (STORM) which employs switchable fluorescent molecules to smash the boundaries imposed by the diffraction limit of traditional microscopes. The result: ultra-high resolution images of molecules and cellular structures 10,000x smaller than the width of a human hair. With STORM, her lab has discovered previously unknown cellular structures, such as a periodic membrane skeleton in neurons in the brain.

Read more about the Breakthrough Prize here >>