Tsung‐Dao Lee delivers a speech via video in a ceremony in which he was appointed the honorary director of Tsung-Dao Lee Institute in Jiao Tong University in Shanghai on March 7, 2018.

James Lee, Tsung-Dao Lee's son, receives the appointment certificate from Lin Zhongqin, president of Jiao Tong University, in Shanghai on March 7, 2018.

Tsung‐Dao Lee, a Chinese American scientist who won the Noble Prize in physics in 1957, was officially appointed the honorary director of a Shanghai-based institute named after him.

Lin Zhongqin, president of Shanghai Jiao Tong University that operates the Tsung‐Dao Lee Institute, presented the appointment certificate to Lee's son James Lee.

"l'm glad to be the honorary director of the institute and will continue providing suggestions on future development of the institute and contributing my efforts to promoting its influence in the world," the 91-year-old physicist said in a video speech.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University also announced that a laboratory building of the institute will start construction in the second half of this year in the Zhangjiang Science City in Pudong New Area, covering an area of about 56,000 square meters.

It is expected to host three major research platforms specializing in neutrino and dark matter physics, laboratory astrophysics and topological superconductor quantum computation.

With MIT professor Frank Wilczek, who won Nobel prize in physics in 2004, as its first director, the Tsung‐Dao Lee Institute has gathered more than 20 renowned scientists and young scholars, according to Wei Ku, deputy director of the institute.

It has established cooperation with several famous international labs, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US.

In October, it will invite top scientists from all over the world to attend its first international advisory committee meeting to provide advice on the development of the Tsung‐Dao Lee Institute.

The institute originated from a proposal from Lee which was submitted to the Chinese central government in December of 2014. The proposal suggested the establishment of a top‐notch physics research institute similar to the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen and Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton.

With the institute, Leewishes to boost researches in basic sciences and interdisciplinary fields.

On November 28, 2016, China's Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education and the Shanghai government jointly decided to establish a national research institute in Shanghai under the name of Tsung‐Dao Lee. The initiative is then immediately invested by National Science Foundation of China.

The Institute aims to provide a platform to foster academic training, exchange, and collaborations for worldwide physicists and to host cutting-edge research programs in particle physics, cosmology and quantum physics, as well as other related areas such as the application of quantum mechanics to bioprocesses.