Professor Zhang Youming , an alumnus of School of Life Sciences, was elected as a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering(ACATECH) in the ACATECH’s 2020 Annual General Meeting.

The German National Academy of Science and Engineering (Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften e.V,) is the highest honorary and advisory academic institution of engineering and technology in Germany. It mainly conducts strategic research and provides decision-making advice on issues of national importance in engineering science and technology. Its members are distinguished scholars from the fields of engineering, natural sciences and humanities and social sciences.

Professor Zhang Youming  is a renowned microbiologist and now the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology and Director of the Institute of Microbial Technology at Shandong University. He received his undergraduate degree in biology from Xiamen University in 1985, his master's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Peking Union Medical College in 1988, and his PhD in molecular and cellular biology from Heidelberg University in 1994. During his postdoctoral research at the University of Heidelberg Medical School and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) from 1995 to 2000, Prof. Zhang created the revolutionary Red/ET gene recombination technology and founded Gene Bridges GmbH in 2000 as Chief Scientific Officer based on the Red/ET technology. Back in 2019, Prof. Zhang has been elected as a member of the European Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Zhang is mainly engaged in the establishment, optimization and industrialization of DNA macromolecule cloning and microbial genome editing technology system based on Red/ET homologous recombination engineering, as well as the application of microbial drugs, transgenic animals and viral nucleic acid vaccine research based on this, and has made outstanding academic contributions in the fields of microbial genome editing and modification technology. His research achievements mainly include: more than 10 international invention patents and 26 domestic patents granted; more than 130 cumulative SCI papers, 11 of which were published in Nature and its sub-journals, with total impact factor over 780, total citations over 11,600, and H-index 50; the first article on Red/ET genome editing technology, published in Nature Genetics, and this article has a single citation >1330; he was selected as Elsevier China Highly Cited Scholar twice in 2018 and 2019.