Center for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Bioinformatics
June 13, 2023

The Center for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Bioinformatics in School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is the main base for research, education and international cooperation of precision medicine. The Center was established in May 2013, headed by Professor Zhang Jian, and further integrated with the Medical Bioinformatics Center and Chemistry Teaching Department in May 2020. The Center has been focusing on the development of precision medicine and pharmaceutical innovation technology and its application in clinical diagnosis and treatment. The independently developed technology of allosteric drug design has an important influence in the world, and has been used by more than 60,000 medical users from more than 100 countries in the past five years. At the same time, the Center has undertaken a number of research and transformation projects of medical big data and artificial intelligence in the domestic and overseas, and cultivated a group of precision and translational medicine talents. It provides support for the docking of biomedicine and artificial intelligence era.

The center has an excellent faculty. At present, there are 22 teachers, 75% of whom have doctor degrees. Among them, 1 is a senior, 8 are associate senior, and 4 are doctoral and master supervisors. Zhang Jian, director of the center, is a Distinguished Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and a member of “the Disciplinary Appraisal Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council”. He has obtained “the National Outstanding Youth Fund of The National Natural Science Foundation of China”, “the National Ten Thousand Talents Program”, and “the youth scholar of Changjiang Scholars Award Program”. He mainly participates in the research of drug design, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, especially in the fields of precise target identification and “first-in-class” drug lead discovery, and has created a series of breakthrough achievements. As the corresponding author, he has published more than 120 SCI papers in international journals including Nat Chem Biol, Chem, Chem Rev, etc., with over 10,000 citations and an H factor of 58. He has successively won honors such as “the Excellent Research Advisor of the American Chemical Society”, the first prize (1/4) of “the Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education”, “the Biomedical Innovation Award of the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association”, and“the Top Ten New Scientists and Technologists in China” in 2017, and was selected as the "2% of the world's top scientists" into “Stanford University Lifetime Science Influence List”. Since establishment, the center has undertaken projects such as national major research plans, national new drug discovery, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Sailing Talent Program of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission, and Frontier Research Youth Support Program of Basic Medical School, and published more than 120 articles associated with the identification of new target and drug discovery.

In terms of teaching, both the bioinformatics team and medical chemistry teaching team of the Center have undertaken teaching work for graduate students, undergraduate students and international students each year. The bioinformatics team offers courses such as "Bioinformatics", "Medical Image Processing and Analysis", "Biomedical Data Mining", "VB Programming" and "Computer Application Basis". At the same time, the medical chemistry teaching team offers compulsory courses "Basic Medical Chemistry", "Medical Organic Chemistry", "Analytical Chemistry and Instrumental Analysis" for undergraduates, and elective courses "Application of Chromatography Analysis in Medicine", "Introduction to Pharmacy", " Step into the magical nano world" for undergraduates and postgraduates. The Center has completed nearly 1500 credit hours of undergraduate and graduate theoretical courses every year, and assisted in 260 hours of undergraduate experimental courses. In addition, the "General Chemistry" and "Organic Chemistry" courses of the five-year clinical (English) class are exemplary all-English teaching courses among of universities in Shanghai, and the "Basic Chemistry B" and "Organic Chemistry for Medical Use" of the eight-year clinical (French) class Chemistry B" is a Chinese-French bilingual course. A number of teachers in the center edited and participated in the editing of many textbooks planned by People's Health Press, Science Press, and Higher Education Press. Among them, the 8th edition of "Organic Chemistry" won the Excellent Textbook Award for Ordinary Universities in Shanghai. The teachers of the center actively participate in teaching academic research and promote curriculum ideological and political education. In addition to undertaking a number of teaching topics and publishing teaching papers, they have also won the first prize and excellence award in the national medical school curriculum ideological and political teaching case evaluation, Peking University Medical Education Forum "Best Practice Excellence Award".

In terms of academic communication, the Center is committed to building a global biomedical innovation ecosystem together with partners from all fields. From original scientific research to efficient achievement transformation, it has formed good interaction and communication with partners. The Center deeply cooperates and communicates with the Shanghai Institute of Medicine of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Biological information technology research center, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Experimental Immunology Laboratory Cancer Research Center of National Cancer Institute of the U.S.A., Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital and Xinhua Hospital, which has made a series of scientific research progress.

The Center has also made many achievements in the scientific innovation cultivation of undergraduates and teenagers. As the innovation base for undergraduate students of the school, 5 students under our guidance have won more than 20 awards and funds, such as the National College Students Life Science Competition and the Challenge Cup Competition of Shanghai, they have published many SCI articles. At the same time, as the teenagers’ science training station of Shanghai Pharmaceutical Association and Shanghai Medical Science Practice Workstation, the Center successfully held popular science summer camp, providing prospective practice for the cultivation of biomedical talents in the future.