History

The predecessor of the BNU College of Life Sciences was the Department of Natural History at Imperial University of Peking which was established in 1904. Then it renamed as the Department of Biology in 1923, one of the earliest biology departments established among Chinese universities. In 1952, the biology department of Fu Jen Catholic University was merged into the department. Then in 1998, the College of Life Science was established.

 

Overview

The college has two first-level disciplines, biology and ecology, as well as their postdoctoral research centers. The ecology discipline was selected as one of the key disciplines for the national "double first-class" initiative in 2017. The college has four research institutes in ecology, cell biology, biochemistry and biotechnology, and genetics and developmental biology respectively, and five departments in ecological science, cell biology, biochemistry and biotechnology, genetics and developmental biology, and biology education respectively. The academic strength of the School in these disciplines contributes to the establishment of seven innovative provincial/ministerial research platforms, including Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Observation and Research Station，Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Regulation Biology, Ministry of Education, etc.

 

Mission

The Mission of the College is to establish a structurally optimized, efficiently operated and harmoniously cooperated College of Life Sciences capable of facing future challenges in science advances. Aiming at training qualified teachers and researchers in biology with ambition of science and technological innovation, and undertaking high quality researches on the major theoretical frontier issues of biology and ecology, the College focuses on the continuity in faculty development, in laboratory and research platform initiatives, and in serving the needs of national development.

 

Faculty

The College is cultivating a high quality faculty team with excellent innovative talents by enrolling established academic leaders and training talented young faculty members. The College faculty currently include one academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one distinguished professor of the Chang Jiang Scholars’ Program, six winners of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars one National Distinguished Teachers and five Beijing Municipal-level Renowned. The School has aslo invited numerous well-known scientists and scholars as honorary professors or adjunct professors.

 

Ecology（National Key Discipline）

The Ecology Department at BNU，which is among the earliest biology departments in China in 1923, originated from the section of natural history in National Beijing Normal University. In 1987, it was approved as the first batch of national top disciplines (only three in China). In 2000, the “Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education” was jointly established and operated with Fudan University. In 2017, the Ecology was entitled to one of the “National First-class Universities and Top Disciplines”.

 

The Ecology Discipline of BNU possesses several research platforms, including Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Observation and Research Station, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Ministry of Education, Beijing Higher Education Engineering Center for Eco-Services Industry Planning and Designing, International Galliformes Research Center, and the Beijing Raptor Rescue Center. It has also implemented long-term international collaborative research projects with Oxford University, Yale University, UCLA, University of Zurich, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, and University of Groningen.

 

Major Research Fields: Plant Ecology, Animal Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, Evolution and Molecular Ecology.

 

Biology（Beijing Municipal level Key Discipline）

The Biology Discipline at BNU is one of the earliest batches granted to confer doctor degree by the Ministry of Education of China. It is also a postdoctoral research center. Cell Biology is national sub-discipline, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is listed as Beijing Municipal level key disciplines, and Developmental Biology is the key discipline of BNU. The Biology Discipline includes the Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Regulation Biology, Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, and Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Engineering Drug and Biotechnology.

 

The Biology Discipline has achieved several outstanding advancements in the fields of cell proliferation and regulation, protein degradation mechanism, calcium ion channel and calcium signal transduction, plant developmental molecular mechanism, lipid metabolism regulation, etc., and has published a series of articles in Nature, Cell, PNAS and other highly credited academic journals. These articles have been granted the First Prize of the Natural Science Research Achievement Award by the Ministry of Education.