International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, IEAS

Academician

Shilin CHEN

Profile:

Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences on 25 April 2015, Professor Shilin Chen is a distinguished Chinese pharmacognosist and a pioneer in the development of herbal genomics, with major contributions to the study, identification, and quality control of traditional Chinese medicine resources. Born in November 1961 in Jingmen, Hubei Province, he received his degree in Chinese Materia Medica from Hubei University of Chinese Medicine in 1978 and has since pursued a career integrating modern biological sciences with traditional medicine research. From 2006 to 2012, he served as Director and Legal Representative of the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and subsequently served as Director of the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. He currently serves as Chief Professor at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chief Researcher at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Honorary Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine. He was elected Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2023 and Foreign Member of both the Russian Academy of Engineering and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in 2022. He also serves as a Member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. A Qi Huang Scholar and leader of a Ministry of Education Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team, he has received the National Medal for Innovation and Excellence and three National Science and Technology Progress Awards (Second Prize).

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Professor Chen’s research has focused on the identification, conservation, and quality assurance of traditional Chinese medicine resources, with particular emphasis on establishing herbal genomics as a systematic research field. By integrating molecular biology, genomics, and bioinformatics, he has developed genomic and computational approaches for the authentication of medicinal species, the investigation of biosynthetic pathways, and the assessment of the quality and safety of herbal products. He has authored 580 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, including Nature, Cell, PNAS, Nature Plants, and Nature Communications, with an h-index of 86 and more than 46,000 citations. His research has contributed to the development of national and international standards for the identification and quality control of herbal medicines and to the application of modern genomic methods in traditional medicine research. His contributions to genome-based authentication and resource assessment have also supported more systematic approaches to the conservation and sustainable utilisation of medicinal plants. Through sustained leadership of major national research programmes, international scientific collaborations, and WHO initiatives in traditional medicine, Professor Chen has contributed to connecting traditional Chinese medicine knowledge with contemporary genomic science and to strengthening the scientific foundations for the quality assurance, sustainable utilisation, and modern development of traditional medicinal resources.