Zhong Chao, doctor, researcher, winner of national fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, national key talent introduction engineering expert, has won honors such as Shanghai Shuguang scholar and Shanghai Pujiang talent. He graduated from Tianjin University with a bachelor's degree in materials science and received a doctorate from Cornell University in 2009. He has successively engaged in postdoctoral work in the Department of materials at the University of Washington (Seattle) and the center for synthetic biology at the Massachusetts Institute of technology. After returning home, he served as the subject leader and researcher in Shanghai University of science and technology from July 2014 to March 2020, and was promoted to tenured professor in December 2019. Since March 2020, he has served as the director and researcher of the center for material synthetic biology of the synthesis Institute of the Advanced Institute.

Dr. Zhong's main research field is the emerging field of material synthetic biology. His research direction is to use synthetic biotechnology to develop new materials and nanotechnology, including underwater adhesive glue and living functional materials. More than 50 academic papers have been published, including a work or communication paper published in Nature Reviews materials, Nature Nanotechnology, nature chemical biology, science advances, nature communications and other magazines. Relevant achievements have been granted 2 U.S. patents and 2 Chinese patents, and more than 10 patents are being applied for. As the person in charge, he has undertaken the key projects of synthetic biology in the national key R & D plan, key projects and general projects of the United Nations Fund for nature, the open fund of the National Key Laboratory of marine science, the Shanghai basic special key project fund and other projects.