Dr. Xinhong Zhu received his B.S. degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from the Henan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, P.R. China, in 1991. He then obtained the M.S. degree in Integrative Medicine and the Ph.D. degree in Neurobiology from the First Military Medical University, Guangzhou, P.R. China, in 2002 and 2005. He continued his study as a senior visiting scholar at IMMAG, Medical college of Georgia, USA, from January 2009 to September 2010. He has been with the Southern Medical University since 2004, which the predecessor is the First Military Medical University, and became a Full Professor in 2010.

He was awarded the National Outstanding Youth Fund, in 2013, the leader of the 10000 Talents Program, in 2017, the chief scientist of the innovation team project in key fields of the Ministry of Science and Technology, in 2016, the leader of the "special support program" of Guangdong Province, in 2016, and the distinguished professor of "Zhujiang scholars" of Guangdong Province, in 2011.

Now he is one of the executive directors of Chinese society of Physiology (since 2019), and a leader membership of Chinese society of Neuroscience (since 2019). He has won National Natural Science Award (second prize), in 2019, Science and Technology of Guangdong Province (first prize), in 2010 and 2016, the Chinese Medical Science and Technology Award (second prize), in 2010, Natural Science Award of Ministry of education (second prize), and two national invention patents.

His research interest focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of mental illness, such as Major Depressive Disorders (MDD), schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease, and developing new strategies for prevention and treatments. He was awarded more than 15 scientific grants, including outstanding youth fund, key projects, and general projects from the National Natural Science committee, and the innovation team projects of the Ministry of science and technology. He had published more than 30 peer review papers.

His academic contributions are as follows. First, his team found that deficit of astrocytic ATP release plays a vital role in the pathophysiology of depression, and that EET signaling regulates ATP release from astrocytes. These studies were nominated the major progress in basic research in China (Cao, X., Li, LP., Wang, Q., et al, 2013). Second, they found that iron can transport among brain regions, and most important, they found that the abnormal brain iron transport plays a key role in the pathophysiology of anxiety. This work was published on Nature chemical biology, 2019 (Wang, Z., Zeng, YN., Yang P., et al, 2019). Third, they found that promoting adult hippocampal neurogenesis could be developed as a new avenue for screening novel antidepressants (Zhu, XH., Yan, HC., Zhang, J., et al. 2010), and fourth, he set up a platform for screening new antidepressants from the Chinese herbal medicine, and now they found some compounds that produce antidepressant-like effects in mouse models of depression.