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Recently, a foldable eyewear case, FOLDO, jointly developed by Assistant Professor Maurizio Vrenna (Mao Li) and Lecturer Jiang Yuanbo from WKU’s College of Architecture and Design, Chen Wangyu, Wu Jiawei, and He Ziyu, students majoring in Industrial Design, and Lu Yan, Lyu Bingwei, and Xu Jiahong, students majoring in Graphic Design, has been awarded the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026.The project was developed through a collaboration between Wenzhou-Kean University and Wenzhou Lovedoor Group Co., Ltd. This marks another international recognition for WKU’s faculty and students following the 2026 iF Design Award received by Horizon Lamp. It also represents another achievement in the University’s efforts to deepen university–industry collaboration and advance sustainable design practice.The Red Dot Design Award was established in 1955 and comprises three major competition areas: Product Design, Brands & Communication Design, and Design Concept. The Red Dot Award: Design Concept, received by FOLDO, was established in 2005 and focuses on design concepts, prototypes, and proposals with future development potential.From “Bulky” to “Lightweight”: Rethinking the Eyewear CaseFOLDO uses a compact tubular structure and felt components made from recycled fishing nets to address the bulkiness and limited portability of traditional eyewear cases.The team initially explored a wide range of eyewear case forms, examining the balance between storage space, protection, material use, and portability. One important source of inspiration came from the everyday structure of ventilation and exhaust ducts. Their ability to expand, contract, and unfold provided the team with a new direction for exploring a transformable structure suitable for an eyewear case.Another distinctive feature of the project was the interdisciplinary collaboration between Industrial Design and Graphic Design students.Industrial Design students were primarily responsible for concept development, form and structural exploration, model making, and 3D modelling. Graphic Design students focused on the project’s branding and visual identity, promotional booklet, presentation slides, video, and communication of the design concept. The intersection of these different viewpoints allowed FOLDO to gradually evolve into a comprehensive design project encompassing product design, materials, branding, and visual communication.The team also presented its early proposals to the company for further discussion. Through continuous exchange and collaboration, the team ultimately identified “folding” as the core design direction.Visiting the Company: Understanding Design in a Real-World ContextDuring the development process, the team visited Wenzhou Lovedoor Group Co., Ltd. for an exchange of ideas and a project presentation. Through the company visit, students gained a deeper understanding of the production processes for eyewear and related products, from material selection, structural design, and forming to subsequent processing and assembly. This gave them a more direct understanding of the material and manufacturing considerations involved in turning a design concept into a real product.Designs that had originally existed mainly as drawings and models had to be reconsidered within a real industrial context: Is the material suitable? Can the structure actually be realised? Are the dimensions appropriate? Does the final product meet real-world requirements for use and manufacturing? Feedback from the company further helped the team refine and improve the project.This collaboration combines classroom learning, industry practice, and international design competitions. Through real-world industry projects, students gain a deeper understanding of the relationships among materials, manufacturing, users, and markets. Interdisciplinary collaboration further strengthens their overall design capabilities.

For years, cross-cultural psychologists have faced a longstanding puzzle: East Asian societies are often seen as more collectivistic, but some surveys have yielded higher collectivism scores for Western societies.A recent study, with Dr. Alexander S. English of Wenzhou-Kean University serving as a core collaborator, published in Nature Human Behavior, suggests that the issue may come from how collectivism is measured.The researchers found that many traditional surveys mix two different things: general warmth toward other people and responsibility within close relationships. Western participants often score higher on general warmth, which can push up their overall collectivism scores.To better explain this difference, the team introduced Responsibilism. Instead of only asking how collectivistic a person is, Responsibilism looks at the responsibilities people feel toward others in different relationships.These responsibilities can change depending on how close the relationship is. This idea is connected to Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong’s differential mode of association (chaxu geju).The researchers tested this idea in 45 languages, with 12,247 participants from 100 cultural regions. The results showed clear differences between Eastern and Western cultures. They also suggestedthat relationship-based responsibility may explain some cultural differences better than traditional collectivism measures.The team has also developed a 14-item Responsibilism Scale, which is now available to researchers around the world. Dr. English and his collaborators plan to keep studying how culture and interpersonal relationships shape human behavior.About Dr. Alexander S. EnglishDr. English received his Ph.D. in applied psychology from Zhejiang University. His research focuses on cross-cultural adaptation and intercultural communication.He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers in international SSCI journals and has received awards from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP) and the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP).Besides, he has received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Foreign Excellent Young Scientists Fund for a project running from 2026 to 2027.Sept 22, translated by Zhengnan Zhang

Plants cannot move. Faced with harsh environments such as high temperatures, severe cold, and drought, how do they sense danger, initiate defenses, and yet achieve "precise regulation without overreacting"? This is not only a fundamental scientific question in botany but also concerns the core of crop stress resistance breeding—solving this puzzle could provide a completely new technological path for food security.Recently, the project "The role of adenylate cyclases in fine-tuning hormone signaling for plant stress tolerance and resilience," led by Professor Aloysius Wong, Dean of the College of Science, Mathematics and Technology and Researcher in the International Frontier Interdisciplinary Research Institute of Wenzhou-Kean University, received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China's Research Fund for International Excellent Scientists (RFIS-II). This research targets a particularly challenging aspect of plant stress resistance signal regulation. This marks Professor Aloysius Wong's third grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), following his NSFC International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Project in 2018 and the NSFC Young Scientists Fund Project in 2021.The Dilemma of Signaling: Plants release hormones as "alarm signals" to activate their defense mechanisms when faced with adversity. However, the problem lies in the fact that this signaling system must be sufficiently sensitive to respond to minute environmental changes, yet it cannot be overly sensitive, otherwise it will consume excessive energy and affect normal growth. Achieving this "precise regulation" has long been a recognized challenge in the scientific community.Even more challenging is that the molecules and hormones that help plants sense external signals are highly conserved across different species, but due to the difficulty in identifying homologous sequences, the enzymes involved in the synthesis of these signaling molecules, as well as the proteins that interact with them, have long been difficult to locate. Traditional research methods are like "finding a needle in a haystack," resulting in slow progress.Breaking the Bottleneck with "Precision-Guided" ResearchFaced with this predicament, Professor Wong's team took a different approach, employing a unique "precision-guided" strategy—a research method based on computational modeling of short amino acid motifs—to identify novel protein catalytic centers and ligand binding sites. If traditional methods involve blindly searching through a vast number of proteins, this technology is like precisely inserting a "probe" into the core functional region of a protein, directly "targeting" the problem at the molecular level.Based on the previous National Natural Science Foundation of China projects completed in 2021 and 2024, the team successfully discovered several novel adenylate cyclases (ACs) using this innovative method. These enzymes can use adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as a raw material to generate the crucial second messenger 3′,5′-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)—a vital signaling molecule in plants that finely regulates the entire process of plant growth, development, and stress responses. The relevant findings have been published in authoritative international journals such as Molecular Plant and Nature Plants.The Leap from "Discovery" to "Reversal"Discovering adenylate cyclases was only the first step. A more crucial question is: how do these enzymes function within cells? How do they regulate hormone signaling and help plants resist adversity?Existing research suggests that adenylate cyclases can act as "molecular tuners." In this newly approved National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) project, Professor Wong will focus on investigating how adenylate cyclases regulate other domains on the same protein, integrating multiple signaling pathways to achieve hormone-mediated plant stress responses. Through computational analysis, the team discovered that these proteins carrying adenylate cyclases also possess potential binding sites for nitric oxide (NO) and abscisic acid (ABA).Based on this, Professor Wong proposes a scientific hypothesis: locally produced cAMP can regulate and alter the strength of hormone signals, generating precise and dynamic spatiotemporal effects in different functional regions of plant cells. This means that we have not only discovered where the "signal switch" is but also elucidated the mechanism of "how to fine-tune" it at the molecular level—analyzing the regulatory mechanism of adenylate cyclase on other protein domains and clarifying how multiple signals synergistically mediate plant hormone stress responses are key to deciphering new mechanisms of plant stress resistance and discovering new targets for crop improvement.Giving crops "resilience" so they can grow strong enough. Professor Aloysius Wong holds a Master's degree in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Biological Sciences from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. He previously worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and achieved numerous important research results in the field of plant cell signaling. Since joining Wenzhou-Kean University in 2016, Professor Wong has led three National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) projects and one Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation project. He has published numerous papers in top international academic journals such asNature Plants,Molecular Plant,Plant Cell,Trends in Plant Science,Plant Journal,Journal of Experimental Botany, andDevelopment. He has been selected for the Ouyue Elite Talent Program and received the title of Zhejiang Provincial High-Level Outstanding Talent.From NSFC International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Projects to NSFC Young Scientists Fund Projects, and now to the NSFC Research Fund for International Excellent Scientists (RFIS-II).—Professor Wong's research journey is the culmination of years of accumulation and a vivid example of the mutual support between scholars and platforms."Wenzhou-Kean University's international research environment provides me with a valuable platform for conducting challenging and cutting-edge research," Professor Wong stated. He added that securing multiple national-level competitive research projects also demonstrates the continuously strengthening capabilities of Wenzhou-Kean University in supporting high-level scientific research and cultivating research talent. In his view, a combination of an international academic perspective, robust research support, and unwavering research ideals can foster high-quality research results.“At Wenzhou-Kean University, young scholars are not just passing through. With a suitable research environment, strong support, and persistent academic pursuit, researchers can truly settle down here, grow alongside the university, and climb new academic heights step by step,” he said.From basic research at the molecular level to the potential applications of crop resistance breeding, Professor Wong's team's exploration continues. Just as precision medicine opens new lifelines for late-stage cancer patients, deciphering the “fine-tuning switch” of plant stress resistance signals will bring new hope to global food security.