Dr. Kexuan Tang is the Distinguished Professor, Director of Plant Biotechnology Research Center, Director of Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), one of the most prestigious universities in China. He is also the Chief Scientist of Yazhouwan National Laboratory in China. He received BS from Sichuan University (1985), MS from Beijing Agricultural University/Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1988) and PhD from Nottingham University, UK (1996), sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation Biotechnology Pre-doctoral Fellowship. He returned back to Fudan University (China) in 1996, and worked there as Associate Professor (1996-1999) and was promoted to professorship in 1999. He was awarded
the Rockefeller Foundation Biotechnology Career Fellowship to work as visiting scientist for 6 months at John Innes Centre (with Dr. Paul Christou), UK from 1997 to 1998 and for 3 months at University of California-Davis (with Dr. Pamela Ronald), USA from 1999 to 2000. From 1999 to 2003, he served as the Assistant Dean of School of Life Sciences and Group Leader of Plant Genetic Engineering of State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering at Fudan University. From 2003, he joined in SJTU and served as the Dean of School of Agriculture and Biology from 2003 to 2012. He is the founder and director of Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center since 2001. Since 2003, he has been the Distinguished Professor and Director of Plant Biotechnology Research Center at SJTU. He has over 300 peer-reviewed journal papers with over 18,000 citations and H-index of 71, 3 chief-edited biotech books, over 100 invited/plenary talks and over 100 patents authorized. He has received numerous competitive grants including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Sino-UK Collaborative Fund, National Key R&D Program of China to work on biotechnology for human health and agriculture. He has established wide and sustained collaborations worldwide. In collaboration with Linnaeus University (Sweden), Cornell University (USA), Ghent University (Belgium), John Innes Centre (UK), Leiden University (The Netherlands) and others, he has deciphered the Artemisia annua genome for the first time, and developed engineered Artemisia annua with enhanced anti-malaria artemisinin contents which are grown in Madagascar, engineered Catharanthus roseus with increased anti-cancer vinblastine contents, enabling the significant reduction of the production costs of these important compounds, saving millions of lives of malaria and cancer patients. He has invented effective strategy to increase the density of glandular secretory trichomes (GSTs) in plants, which is important for increasing the yields of chemicals and essential oils with economic value synthesized in GSTs, such as essential oils in mint, CBD in hemp and etc. He also invented RNAi strategy to control aphids in crops, providing an effective approach to solve one of the most devastating agricultural pest problems in the world. He was awarded the honorary doctorate from Linnaeus University, Sweden in 2012. He has received prominent Awards such as Natural Science Award of Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai Technology Invention Award, Shanghai Leading Talent Award, President Award of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Chang Jiang Scholar Award. He serves as associate editors or editorial board members for several international journals. He is the vice chairman of Division of Ornamental Plants of International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), vice chairman of Shanghai Society of Biotechnology and the chairman of Artemisinin Industrial Alliance. He has been ranked in the “World’s Top 2% Scientists” by Stanford University, USA. He is the Fellow of Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), Royal Society

Prof. Kexuan Tang has served as Officer of the Medicine and Life Sciences Division since May 2025, for the mandate May 2025 – April 2028 (current and first term, in accordance with the EurASc Bylaws).