Introduction to the College of Life Sciences

The disciplinary origins of the College of Life Sciences can be traced back to the Forestry Department of the former Central University (founded in 1902) and the Forestry Department of Jinling University (founded in 1910). In 2023, it was established by the Botany, Zoology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology disciplines of the School of Biology and Environment, with departments of Plant Science, Zoology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology. It is a new college with a rich history and vitality.

The college has a complete undergraduate, master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral talent training system, with a first-class discipline in biology (Jiangsu Province's advantageous discipline, National Forestry and Grassland Administration's key discipline), and three undergraduate majors in biological science (Jiangsu Province's first-class undergraduate major construction site), wildlife and nature reserve management, and bioinformatics. It has characteristic disciplines such as forest biodiversity and system evolution, forest growth and development biology, animal and plant conservation biology, biological interaction and molecular biology, and animal ecology and biodiversity conservation. The "Zheng Wanjun Biological Science Top notch Student Training Base" has been selected as a construction site for the 2.0 Base of Jiangsu Province's Basic Discipline Top notch Academic Training Plan. There are over 700 undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled.

The college currently has 82 faculty members, including 60 full-time teachers, 25 professors, 28 associate professors, and 7 full-time foreign teachers. Three individuals have been selected for the National Major Talent Project, four Jiangsu Province Distinguished Professors, one Jiangsu Province Double Innovation Talent Plan, two Jiangsu Province "Green and Blue Project" young and middle-aged academic leaders, three academic backbones, a total of 26 high-level introduced talents with overseas doctoral degrees or overseas postdoctoral work experience, two overseas Distinguished Professors, and more than 10 overseas part-time professors. (Data as of September 2025)