‘Itch gene’ scientist joins Shenzhen institute after US lab sealed off amid alleged China links probe

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Uploaded: 2023-05-08T14:00:19.000Z
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Chen Zhoufeng, now a senior researcher at the Shenzhen Bay Lab, led an itch and sensory disorders centre at Washington University St Louis since 2011

His lab at the centre was forced to close over investigations related to the Trump-era China Initiative to counter intellectual property theft

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Chen Zhoufeng (left) and his colleagues made a series of discoveries to advance the understanding of how itch works. Photo: Washington University School of Medicine

Ling Xinin Beijing

Published: 10:00pm, 8 May 2023Updated: 10:00pm, 8 May 2023

A leading expert in the study of itch mechanisms has joined an institute in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, after 33 years in the United States.

Chen Zhoufeng will work as a senior researcher at its Institute of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders, the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory announced via its official account on Chinese social media platform WeChat.

Chen takes on the full-time faculty position after his decades-old lab at Washington University in St Louis was forced to close over investigations related to the China Initiative – a controversial Trump-era national security programme designed to “counter theft of US secrets and technology”, according to a Chinese news site.

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Chinese-American scientists fear US racial profiling

“Professor Chen’s work on the mechanisms of itch is groundbreaking. His team discovered the first ‘itch gene’ and how the sensation is transmitted in neural circuits. The findings settled a long-standing debate in the field, showing that itch and pain are not the same thing,” the Shenzhen Bay Lab said in its post on Sunday.

“His work has inspired research in many related areas, such as skin and anaesthesia, and provided novel drug targets for treating chronic itching, neuro-developmental abnormalities in children, mental health disorders and social autism.”

Chen, a graduate in virology from China’s Wuhan University, had lived in the US since 1990 – first as a doctoral student and then as a researcher and academic.

He earned a PhD in mouse genetics from the University of Texas followed by postdoctoral training at Caltech, before joining the Washington University School of Medicine’s anaesthesiology department as an assistant professor in 2000. He became a full professor in 2009.