Department of Chemical Biology was established in 2000 through the merge of the Departments of Bio-inorganic Chemistry and Bio-organic Chemistry. Its first director was Prof. Baozhen Yue. In 2003, Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis was merged into the Department of Chemical Biology and the newly formed department was directed by Prof. Runtao Li. The current director is Prof. Zhongjun Li and associate directors are Prof. Xiaogai Yang and Prof. Xiaomei Ling.

  Department of Chemical Biology has highly qualified teaching and research staffs. The Department consists of thirty-seven faculty members, including one Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, nine Doctoral Advisors, twelve Master Advisors, ten Professors and fifteen Associate Professors. Twenty-two faculty members have Ph.D. degrees. Prof. Kui Wang, Mengshen Cai, and Shannian Dong are distinguished scholars with high academic achievements, who exemplify the prestige of the Department of Chemical Biology.

  Our Department has the responsibility to teach chemistry and related laboratory courses for the undergraduate students of Peking University Health Science Center and the Ph.D., M.S. students of School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Fifty-four courses were offered by our Department, including inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, instrumental analysis and pharmaceutical analysis as the core courses of the undergraduate, master and PhD programs. Department of Chemical Biology admits master's, doctorate graduate students and postdoctoral researchers of chemical biology and pharmaceutical analysis. Each year 2-3 postdoctoral researchers, 10-12 doctorate students and 40-50 master students enroll in our programs.

  The Department has diverse research programs, actively collaborating with the strong medical and biological research programs of Health Science Center. The researchers have utilized molecular and cellular technologies and animal models to study the structure-activity relationship of compounds. Their research projects cover the fields of chemical biology, pharmacology, toxicology, and metabolism. Many professors are involved in the development of new synthetic methods and the understanding of the mechanisms of pharmacological, toxicological and pathological actions of organic and inorganic compounds. The causative factors of the development and progression of the diseases are actively studied, along with their interference of the biological process and the drug intervention of the pathological processes. We have built world-class research platforms with international influence and achieved many important research accomplishments. Our Department currently undertakes a number of projects funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China, Scientific and Technological Major Special Project -"Significant Creation of New Drugs", and National Basic Research Program (973 Program) at the national and ministerial level. More than 145 articles are published in SCI journals and 49 patents are applied with more than 25 approved in the past five years. The Department also earned 2 provincial-level research and teaching awards and completed nearly 40 state-level research tasks.