I have been working on the parasitic diseases for more than 36 years since 1982 when I entered the Jiangsu Institute of Parasitic Diseases based in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. I moved to the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and WHO Collaborating Centre for Tropical Diseases, based in Shanghai, China since 2001. My major contributions to the schistosomiasis control and research laid strong background on coordinating activities for multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary cooperation on tropical medicine both in the national level and international level. In the national level, I have been serving the Vice Chair of the Chinese Ministry of Health Expert Committee on Disease Control and Chair for the Sub-group of Parasitic Diseases and Schistosomiasis since 2006. With over 30 years' experience in the field, I have long-term experience working on provincial and national programmes on schistosomiasis control and research, for instance, I have accomplished several big research projects in cooperation with more than 10 institutions, awarded many honorable prizes for research works or individual contributions on epidemiology of schistosomiasis and snail biology. In the international level, I have had long-term cooperation experiences with WHO and serves as member of international expert committees, such as the WPRO Review Group on Neglected Tropical Diseases, the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Neglected Tropical Diseases, and the TDR Committee for Malaria Eradication. With my efforts together other colleagues from Asia, I had involved the initiative for the Regional Network on Asian Schistosomiasis and Other Helminth Zoonoses (RNAS+) which is still actively existed. Recently, I also pushed the initiation of another China-Africa network, namely Institution-based Network on China-Africa Cooperation on Schistosomiasis Elimination (INCAS).

With those activities, we have more friends in the world working as a south-south or south-north model on schistosomiasis control and research. In addition, I also actively involved in the editorial works on tropical diseases, such as I am Editor-in-Chief of Infectious Diseases of Poverty, Associate Editor of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, and a board member of Parasites and Vectors journals. Personally, I have published more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and more than six academic books. I have been principal investigator for more than 20 national and international research projects, and have supervised more than 40 MSc or PhD students, as well as international postdoctoral fellows.