The School of Life Sciences makes higher education and scientific research as its central task. The goal of education is to cultivate high quality professionals who may become leaders in education, research and technological development in the field of Life Science. The aim of our scientific research is to promote human’s understanding on the nature of the life phenomena and meanwhile emphasize the application of the knowledge thus obtained to advance the life of the humanity.
Scientific research and teaching at the school would not be successful without the strong support of an efficient administration and logistics staff. It is our aim to have everyone in the school to work together to achieve the greatness in both scientific research and higher education.
The School of Life Sciences at Peking University(PKU) was established in 1952 by merging three departments of Biology, including the one established in 1923 at Yenching University, the one established in 1925 at Peking University, and the one established in 1926 at Tsinghua University.
Three graduate students supervised by Pro. T. H. Morgan, the founder of modern genetics, made their effect on the Department of Biology at PKU in its early days. They are Prof. Alice M. Boring, who taught at Yenching University from 1923 to 1950, Prof. Ruqi Li who taught at both Yenching and Peking University, and Prof. Ziying Chen who taught at both Yenching and Xiamen University. Among them, as the Chinese Ph.D. students who were mentored by Dr Morgan, Prof. Li Ruqi taught at Peking University until retirement, and is considered as one of the founders of genetics in China.
As a result of great efforts of a few generations of faculties, the School has been continuously strengthened over the years. Added to the initial majors of Zoology and botany were plant physiology, animal physiology and animal genetics in the early 1950s, biochemistry and biophysics in 1956, cell biology, microbiology, environmental biology and ecology in 1980s, and biotechnology in 1993. The Department of Biology was renamed as School of Life Sciences in 1993. Currently the School possesses two state key laboratories, one key laboratory of the Ministry of Education, five state key subjects and eight majors for Ph.D. education.
The School currently enrolls over 500 undergraduates, who take courses for the first three years and practice research in the last year of study. The School also currently enrolls over 400 graduate students, who participate in research in a wide variety of areas in life science and pursue a Ph.D. degree.
More ...