Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is an important part of the College of Life Sciences. In recent years, the department has developed rapidly. It made tremendous progress in team construction, teaching and scientific research, relying on the State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology. Master/doctoral degree is awarded on the discipline of biochemistry and molecular biology.

There are 23 faculty members in Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, including 2 Taishan scholars, 10 professors, 10 associate professors, 1 senior technician, 1 people in the national hundred, thousand talent project, 1 people enjoying the special allowance of State Council, and 1 young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contribution in Shandong Province, and 1 with national teaching master-hand award. Among all the teachers, 21 of them have doctoral degrees, of which 10 have overseas study experience. There is 1  Yangtze River Scholar innovation team  certified by the Ministry of Education; and 1 national level teaching team. At present, a team of teachers has been assembled by Taishan scholars, members of Yangtze River Scholar innovation team, and supervisors of master and doctoral students. It is a team by young and middle-aged teachers full of vigor, love for education, innovation and teamwork.

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has long been emphasizing teaching as the forefront of team development. The workload of teaching is large and significant. Teachers undertake various courses in biochemistry, molecular biology, genetic engineering, and biochemistry experimental lessons for undergraduate, master and doctoral students of the university. Our biochemistry course is one of the first batches of excellent courses in Shandong Province. In 2009, Biochemistry was rated among National Bilingual Teaching Demonstration Courses by the Ministry of Education; the teaching team of biochemistry and molecular biology was awarded the outstanding teaching team of Shandong Province in 2009 and was awarded the national teaching team in 2010. Professor Xiaoyun Wang won the first “Teacher Award” in Shandong Province in 2004 and won the “National Teacher Award” in 2011. The members also chaired more than 20 provincial- and university-level teaching research and reform projects; published more than 20 teaching research papers; chief edited and associate edited 8 high-level university textbooks; won the provincial and school-level outstanding teaching achievement awards and outstanding teaching material awards. The team has undertaken the task of building educational and teaching projects such as national-level specialty of biotechnology, national experimental teaching demonstration center for agricultural biology, national innovation experimental zone for plant production personnel training model , and elementary laboratory for central and local universities. The team members specifically organized a college-wide student’s biochemistry skills competition, tutored a number of university science and technology societies, and set up innovative experiments for undergraduate students. This played a positive role in stimulating students’ interest in learning, strengthening professional thinking, and improving the overall student qualifications.

Members of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology rely on the State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology to actively carry out scientific research and have made outstanding achievements. Since 2006, they have chaired more than 40 national-level scientific research projects such as the National 973 Major Project, the National High-Tech 863 Project, the National Key Project for Genetically Modified Plants and Industrialization, and the National Natural Science Foundation Projects. More than 200 papers have been published on domestic and international well-known academic journals such as《New Phytologist》,《Molecular and Cellular Proteomics》, 《Plant Molecular Biology》, and 《Crops Journal》, including more than 120 SCI papers and nearly 20 national invention patents. Prof. Chengchao Zheng was elected as the National Talent of the National “Hundred Million Talent Project in the New Century” in 2004. His team was elected as “Yangtze River Scholar Innovation Team” by the Ministry of Education in 2007. In 2008, Prof. Zheng was named as a young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions in Shandong Province. He was appointed as Taishan scholar Distinguished professor in 2011. With the improvement of research capabilities, the quality of personnel training has gradually improved. In the past five years, from the doctoral and master's programs in biochemistry and molecular biology, a total of more than 100 Master and Ph.D. graduate students have been trained. These students either joined famous research institutes or enterprises in the country, or they chose to famous research laboratories at home or abroad for further education. At present, the department has established many stable research directions such as crop stress molecular biology, molecular enzymology, biotechnology for crop improvement, crop disease resistance, environmental physiology, and plant developmental molecular biology, and so on.