A milestone study by researchers at Peking University Health Science Center (PKUHSC) was selected one of the top 10 scientific advances in China for the year 2025. This was announced by the National Natural Science Foundation in March 25.

PKUHSC’s Jiang Changtao, Kong Wei, Sun Jinpeng, Qiaojie and Wang Kai—together with groups from Shandong University, China-Japan Friendship Hospital and Wenzhou Medical University—identified ceramide receptors and microbial regulators, and explained their roles in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

This research brings to an end the century-long search by the academic community for the functional targets of ceramide, providing a precise molecular basis for understanding its pathogenic mechanism. It suggests that in the future, early identification of high-risk population can be achieved in clinical practice by detecting ceramide levels, and offers a set of entirely new druggable targets for drug development such as FPR2, CYSLTR2 and CerS6.

Three related findings of this research were published in Science (2025a, 2025b) and Nature (2025) in May 2025. The research has attracted extensive attention since its publication and been featured in special commentaries by international journals, which described it as providing new therapeutic targets for reducing the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. This fully demonstrates the dual value of this breakthrough in both basic research and translational application.

Written by: Fan Xiaofei

Edited by Liu Xin

Source: PKUHSC Office of Research, School of Basic Medical Sciences