DENG Zixin, Professor of Microbiology and Chemical Biology at Wuhan University/Shanghai Jiaotong University，the current President of Chinese Society of Microbiology. He is a Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fellows of the World Academy of Sciences (formally the Third World Academy of Sciences, TWAS), the American Academy of Microbiology, and Royal Society Fellow of Chemistry. He was born in Hubei Province, China in 1957. He received his Bs degree on microbiology from Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, in 1982, and a PhD degree on microbial genetics from the University of East Anglia, UK, in 1987, while working in Streptomyces group at John Innes Centre. Major interest is on Streptomyces genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology of antibiotic biosynthesis, and DNA backbone modification by sulfur (phosphorothiolation). He now acts as associate editor for ACS Chemical Biology, and as member of editorial boards for a number of journals including Cell Chemical Biology, Applied & Environmental Microbiology (ASM).