From 1990, he obtained a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and a doctorate in molecular and cell physiology from Tufts University School of Life Medicine in Boston, USA. 1995- 1998, worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell Biology of Harvard Medical School and the Department of Biology of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1998 assistant professor, department of biochemistry and molecular biology, baylor medical college, USA. In 2004, he was promoted to tenured associate professor, and in 2008, he was promoted to tenured professor in the Department of Biochemical and Molecular Biology. At the same time, he is also a professor of pharmacy department of Baylor Medical College, director of Qualcomm Center for Quantitative Experiment, and a researcher at Huffington Center for Aging and Cell Molecular Biology, Stem Cell and Neonatal Medicine Center and D.L. Duncan Cancer Center. In 2009, he became the Dean of School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University.

He has published 80 papers and monographs, and more than 20 papers in journals with impact factors greater than 10, such as Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, Natural Cell Biology, NSMB and Molecular Cell. The total number of citations exceeded 7500.