Professor Zhengming Chen qualified in medicine at Shanghai Medical University (now Fudan University) in 1983, and gained his DPhil in Epidemiology at the University of Oxford in 1993. He was appointed Professor of Epidemiology by the University of Oxford in 2006. He is now the Director of the China Programs at Oxford University’s Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) and co-executive director of the China Oxford Centre for International Health Research.

Zhengming’s main research focus is on environmental and genetic causes of chronic disease, evidence-based medicine and evaluation of widely practicable treatments for chronic diseases (such as IHD, stroke and cancer) as well as efficient strategies for chronic disease control in developing countries. Over the past 20 years, he has led several large randomised trials in heart disease (eg, COMMIT/CCS-2), stroke (eg, CAST) and cancer and 3 cohort studies involving >750,000 individuals. Since 2003 he has been the lead principal investigator in the UK for the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) prospective study of 0.5 million adults. Zhengming leads a research team in Oxford which is responsible for study design and development of procedures and IT systems for the CKB, and for central data management, curation and detailed analyses. He is an honorary professor of Peking Union Medical College and Fudan University in China.