Xiaoguang Lei

Professor

Xiaoguang Lei is Boya Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, a senior investigator at the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and since 2020 a senior principal investigator at Shenzhen Bay Laboratory. He earned his BSc in chemistry at Peking University in 2001 and his PhD at Boston University in 2006, then completed postdoctoral training with Samuel J. Danishefsky at Columbia University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He subsequently established his research group at the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing as director of its Chemistry Center, before moving to Peking University in 2014. His laboratory works on natural product total synthesis, chemical biology and drug discovery, including molecular probes for studying apoptosis and necroptosis and candidate compounds for cancer and infectious disease. His honours include the 2010 IUPAC Young Chemist Award, the 2017 Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award and the 2022 Tu Youyou Award, and he serves as an editor of Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry.