In 1980 Sven Hovmöller was a postdoc in EMBL Heidelberg’s Structural and Computational Biology Unit. His lifelong interest in China meant he was thrilled to meet another postdoc, Yun Li, who joined the unit from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry. Thirty years later, Sven – now professor of chemistry at Stockholm University – would like to find his long-lost colleague.

 “My interest in China started when I was a child,” he explains. “I was always fascinated by the idea that if you dug a hole from Sweden you would end up in China. During the 1968 student revolution, I was very interested in politics and China’s cultural revolution. It was only later that I grew to understand that it was a terrible time in China.”

Yun Li was the first Chinese person Sven had ever met. “She was very friendly, interesting and kind. I remember being moved by her stories about how poor the conditions were in China.”

Both eventually left EMBL, but Sven’s interest in China remained. In 1984, he recruited his first Chinese student, Da Neng Wang, who later also joined EMBL to work with Werner Kühlbrant. “I discovered that the Chinese PhD students who were allowed to go abroad were exceptionally talented,” says Sven. “Typically, they were the best in the province at the university entrance test – in other words, the best among 10,000.”

Having been one of the first professors in Sweden to have Chinese PhD students, Sven says there are now thousands of Chinese in Sweden with a university education. “In my department, we have more Chinese than Swedes.”

Does China still send their best students to Europe and the US? “Yes, but many of them are now attracted by business and law. But if all the Chinese scientists moved back, China would be number one for science.”

In 1987, Sven got a second PhD student. “Xiaodong Zou is now my wife and a very successful scientist,” he says. “We have two wonderful sons, who speak Chinese better than me. I would love to find Yun Li and tell her my story!”