An Introduction to College of Life Sciences

The discipline of biology in Northwest University, Established in 1924, ranks among the earliest in China. The department of Biology was founded in 1937 and renamed as college of life sciences in 2000. Over the past 80 years, it has fostered a huge number of undergraduates and postgraduates. Most of them have become the cores of teaching, research and technical work in their own units, and have made great contributions to China’s construction. Excellent representatives of them include Dr. Yan Longfei, the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Dr. Lu Anmin, the former Presidents of the Botany Institute, and Dr. Zhang Tingbi, the inventor of Heart K and professor in Wuhan University.

　　College of life sciences, Northwest University, has a faculty of 76 people, including one academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, 17 doctoral supervisors, 41 professors and associate professors. 80 percent of them have attained a doctor’s degree. There are over 500 undergraduate students, 259 graduate students and 43 doctoral students.

　　Now, College of life sciences has a National Key Discipline (Botany) and a National Cultivation Base of Life Science and Technology. It consists of two First-degree-disciplines (biology and Chinese Medicine), two Ph.D. programs, and three specialities for undergraduate studies (including Biological Science, Biotechnology and Chinese Medicine). Biological Science and Biotechnology are listed among the Key Disciplines of Shaanxi Province.

　　The college hosts a series of R&D entities, including National Technical Center for Miniaturized Detection Systems, Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China (Northwest University)-Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Biotechnology, Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Medicine, Shaanxi Provincial Technical Center for Biochip Engineering, Botany Institute of Northwest University, Institute of People and Health, Institute of Modern Biotechnology, Institute of Ecotoxicology, Biodiversity Research Center for Mts. Qinling and R&D Center for Genetically Engineered Medicine. Also, a good teaching and research condition, featuring 20 laboratories, a specimen room, a library, a microcomputer room and a multimedia classroom, has made it an important cultivation base of biological sciences.

　　Since the “Tenth Five-year Plan” period, the college has published over 20 books and 500 papers, 100 of which have been included in Science Citation Index (SCI). Besides, it has undertaken or is undertaking more than 60 national, ministerial or provincial scientific projects, including the National 973 Program, the National 863 Program, the Project of National Natural Science Foundation, the Project of the Excellent Young Teachers Program of MOE, the Project of 　Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars (State　Education　Ministry) and international scientific and research cooperative projects. The college has been awarded over 40 prizes and the total scientific research fund for the last three years has come to over 30 million yuan.

　　Through the older generations’ long-term accumulation and the new generation’s unremitting efforts, the Biology discipline of Northwest University has formed six research directions of comprehensive advantage and local specialty, namely Structural and Systematic Evolutionary Botany, Stress Cell Biology and Transgenic Plant, Molecular Ecology and Conservation Biology, Molecular Microbiology and Biochip Technology, Biopharmaceutics and Modernization of Chinese Medicine, and Modern Microbiological Engineering and Biomedical Material. It has developed into a disciplinary system covering both the micro and the macro, the traditionally advantageous disciplines and the emerging ones, the high-level basic research and the high & new biotechnology.

　　 With the approach of the Era of Life Sciences, the college will make a new start with its present academic advantages, intensify international cooperation, make the most use of National Engineering & Technology Center, National Key Discipline, National Cultivation Base, Provincial and Ministerial Key Laboratory, college-entrepreneurial joint laboratories and entities, and open new fields of biological economy. In face of the opportunities and challenges, the college will foster more talents, accomplish more achievements, and make greater contributions to China’s economic construction.