Professor Zhou Hua
Professor Zhou Hua of the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicines, Macau University of Science and Technology, won grants from the 2016 Joint Research Fund for Overseas Chinese Scholars and Scholars in Hong Kong and Macao, National Natural Science Foundation of China. This is the first time ever for a Macau scholar to win grants from this Fund, which shows that the research standard of Macau scholars has reached a new height.
The predecessor of the Joint Research Fund is the “National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars”(Category B), which is also often referred as “Overseas Distinguished Young Scholars Fund”. It offers funding for overseas Chinese scholars and scholars in Hong Kong and Macau, who age below fifty, to conduct high standard joint research with mainland Chinese scholars; it pertains to the important human talents programs of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. In 2016, the Fund approved 135 projects in total, and Professor Zhou Hua’s project is the first of such a kind in Macau.
Professor Zhou Hua joined M.U.S.T. in September of 2011, currently serves as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Chinese Medicine and Director of the Molecular Pharmacology Laboratory of the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicines, M.U.S.T. He conducted research in the anti-inflammation immunopharmacology field and the cardiovascular Chinese medicine pharmacology field for about twenty years, and has accumulated a number of innovative studies and discoveries. He has published 85 SCI-indexed papers, with an overall impact factor of 200 and an H-index of 28. He is a correspondence author and published a series of journal papers in some of the highly respected international journals in the field of molecular target, pharmacology, and alternative medicines, such as Oncotarget, JPET, Shock, J Ethnopharmacol and Mitochondrion. His extraordinary research has won prestigious awards, including the second prize of the 2012 National Science and Technology Progress, the first prize of the 2014 Natural Science Awards, University Science Research Excellent Achievements Awards, Ministry of Education, and the first prize of 2016 Macao Natural Science Awards.
The granted project is in collaboration with Professor Liu Zhong Qiu of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. It mainly studies the new mechanisms of sinamenin, an active ingredient of anti-arthritis Chinese medicine, in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The research will be helpful in the new treatment mechanisms of sinamenin, give it an accurate positioning in clinical practices, and expand its new applications in clinical practices so as to improve its overall treatment effect and benefit the patients.