Professor Zhang Youming, an academician of the Academia Europaea and director of the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology at Shandong University, has made great contributions to the development and application of microbial genome engineering technology, especially in the field of microbial medicine.

Professor Zhang Youming [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Professor Zhang was born in January 1964 in Shenxianqiao village, Taoyuan county, Hunan province.

In 1985, he graduated from the Department of Biochemistry at Xiamen University. In 1988, he graduated from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Peking Union Medical College.

Zhang received his Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from Germany's Heidelberg University in 1994.

He did postdoctoral research at Heidelberg University's Medical School and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory from 1995 to 2000.

During this period, he created the revolutionary Red/ET genetic recombination technology. In 2000, he founded Gene Bridges GmbH on the basis of Red/ET technology and acted as CTO of the company.

As a high-caliber talent, Zhang was recruited by Shandong University in April 2013 as the director of the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology.

"Of the eight Ph.D. students I trained in Germany, seven have followed me to Shandong, and only one of my German students has not come here yet because of the epidemic," said Zhang, adding that he is most proud of bringing outstanding talents back to China.

He has established the Shandong University-Helmholtz Institute of Biotechnology (SHIB) and introduced and trained many outstanding young researchers.

Today, more than 500 scientific research institutions and most biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the world are using Zhang's Red/ET recombination engineering and direct cloning technology.