Introduction of the School of Life Sciences

The School of Life Sciences in Chongqing University was established in July 2012 by integrating the Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences (established at the end of 2007) and the Genetic Engineering Research Center of the College of Bioengineering. The school is dedicated to the research in life sciences, aiming to develop cutting-edge talents and improve human health. Our overall goal is to become a research-oriented school with international renown and unique academic rigor. In recent years, the school has carried out a lot of research in a demand-oriented manner and overcome many difficulties to make substantial achievements.

The School of Life Sciences has established a doctoral program and post-doctoral mobile station in biology as well as a first-class key biology discipline of Chongqing. It has the Crop Ecological Environment Safety Supervision and Testing Center for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Chongqing), Key Laboratory of Plant Hormones and Development Regulation of Chongqing, Engineering Research Center for Insecticidal Fungi Pesticides of Chongqing, Key Laboratory of Functional Genes and Regulation Technology of Chongqing, etc. The total worth of instruments and equipment is more than 30 million CNY. The school is located in the Science Building of the Huxi Campus of Chongqing University. It now has a total office area of 4,500 square meters. The school has invested more than 5 million CNY to support the construction of experimental botany base (including more than 1,100 square meters of smart greenhouses and more than 1,600 square meters of net cage rooms.), undergraduate laboratories, etc. The faculty of the school includes 1 fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, 3 Chair Professors, 15 full-time professors (including 5 tenure-track professors from the Hundred Talents Program), 6 associate professors, 12 technicians and 15 postdoctoral fellows. All full-time faculties have a doctoral degree, more than 90% of which have over one year of overseas experience. The school currently has 121 graduate students (including 62 Ph.D. candidates and 59 master students) and 102 undergraduates.

The biology department in the school carries out multi-disciplinary research that integrates agronomy, medicine, science, engineering, environmental science and other interdisciplinary and multi-field integration, especially in the basic research of environmental-friendly prevention and control of major agricultural pests, drug innovation, plant hormone regulation and agricultural product storage/transportation technology. The school has four main research focuses: ①Microbiology: biological control and drug innovation research against major agricultural pests, which has international renown in the identification of functional genes of locusts and Metarhizium anisopliae. ②Botany: plant hormone signal transduction, fruit ripening and senescence mechanism, plant genetic engineering, etc. ③Genetics: insect genomics and functional genomics. ④Physiology: functional research of important biological proteins, the mechanism of aging and anticancer therapy.

The college places special emphasis on the quality of student education, aiming to foster both their morality and talents. The school strictly adheres to the regulations of the undergraduate tutoring system and takes a "two-way selection" principle to encourage undergraduates to carry out innovative research. The professors are required to give courses to undergraduates and mutual criticism. The school has also established many international joint education programs for undergraduates to expand their capabilities. Since 2012, the scool has collaborated with the University of Toulouse in France, the School of Medicine at the University of Georgia Ryggins and Kumamoto University in Japan on the "Outstanding Undergraduate International Exchange and Cooperation Project".

Since its establishment, the school has obtained more than 100 major research projects including 973, 863, 13^th Five-Year National Key R&D Programs, National Natural Science Foundation of China, international cooperation projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology and other provincial and ministerial projects, of which the total amount was more than 90 million CNY. The school has published 294 SCI papers as the first contact, including many world-renowned biological journals such as Science Advances, Nature Commucation, and Nucleic Acids Research, etc. The school has obtained 22 authorized patents and published 7 textbooks.

At present, the School of Life Sciences of Chongqing University is actively recruiting high-level researchers and promising young talents from home and abroad, aiming to become a world-famous research-oriented institute with about 100 faculties in 2025.