Dr. An-Ping Zeng jointed Westlake University full time in April 2022 as a Chair Professor for Synthetic Biology and Bioengineering in the School of Engineering and the founding Director of the Westlake Center of Synthetic Biology and Integrated Bioengineering. Before joining Westlake University he was a Chair Professor and Director of the Institute of Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) since 2006, he was also the director of the TUHH BSc and MSc Study Programs in Biochemical Engineering.

Before 2006 he was Head of the Research Group Systems Biology at Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig (former German National Center for Biotechnology) where he came a permanent research scientist only one year after obtaining his PhD in Biochemical Engineering from Technical University of Braunschweig in 1990. He studied Chemical Engineering in China (entered Nanchang University in 1978 at the age of 15) before arriving in Germany for PhD study in 1986. He was a Research Scientist (1995-1996) at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences, University of Minnesota, USA.

He is/was member of expert groups, review panel and advisory board of several research organizations (e.g. Max-Planck Institutes, DECHEMA and Chinese Academy of Sciences). He is Editor-in-Chief of “Engineering in Life Sciences” (Wiley). Dr. Zeng has received many awards and honours including Guest Professorship in many Chinese universities, the Award of “Excellent Young Oversee Chinese Scholar” (2000), Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2008), and Member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (2020) (the first German Professor with Chinese Origin). He was also President of the Society of Chinese-German Professors (GDPCH).

The main research directions of Prof. Zeng are industrial biotechnology, cell culture technology, protein engineering, system metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. His recent researches focus on electro-biotechnology, bioconversion of one-carbon compounds such as CO₂, and a novel responsive protein hydrogel with catalytic properties. The research ranges from fundamental study to engineering details, pushing thus discovery (0 to 1) to products and application (1 to 100). He was among the first to apply genomics and protein structure based metabolic engineering approach to develop industrial bioprocesses, especially for the biosynthesis of diols and amino acids. Representative work includes systematic studies on 1,3-propanediol bioproduction, an important industrial bioprocess, ranging from quantitative analysis, design and regulation of metabolic pathways to techniques of efficient bioreaction and product separation and purification at m³ scale pilot plant. His group developed the world-wide first industrial bioprocess for coupled production of 1,3-propanediol and organic acid esters. In the area of electro-biotechnology, his group developed novel All-in-One electrodes for in situ supply of H₂ and other reaction components or for process control which are successfully used for CO₂ bioconversion, biocatalysis and biosynthesis of fatty acids, and coupled diol-ester process. In the study of one-carbon metabolism and use of CO₂ (air) and formate for biosynthesis, Zeng’s team discovered for the first time a LCST type stimuli-responsive protein hydrogel with catalytic properties, illustrated its gel formation mechanism, and is exploiting its unique uses as a smart biomaterial in synthetic biology, tissue engineering and biomedicine.

He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers, edited 5 books and filed more than 20 patents. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley journal “Engineering in Life Sciences”, is/was associated editor/editorial board member of other seven scientific journals and series.

1. J. Liu, H. Zhang, Y. Xu, H. Meng, A. Zeng*（2023）Turn air-captured CO₂ with methanol into amino acid and pyruvate in an ATP/NAD(P)H-free chemoenzymatic system. Nature Communications. doi:10.1038/s41467-023-38490-w

2. Y. Liu, W. Wang, A. Zeng* (2022) Biosynthesizing structurally diverse diols via a general route combining oxidative and reductive formations of OH-groups. Nature Communications. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29216-5

3. C. Zhang, S. Sharma, C. Ma, A. Zeng* (2022) Strain evolution and novel downstream processing with integrated catalysis enable highly efficient co-production of 1,3-propanediol and organic acid esters from crude glycerol. Biotechnology and Bioengineering. doi: 10.1002/bit.28070

4. H. Meng, Q. Yuan, J. Ren, A. Zeng* (2021) An aldolase-based new pathway for condensation of formaldehyde and ethanol to synthesize 1,3-propanediol in Escherichia coli. ACS Synthetic Biology, 10, 799–809.

5. H. Zhang, Y. Li, J. Nie, J. Ren, A. Zeng* (2020) Structure-based dynamic analyses of the glycine cleavage system suggests key residues for control of a key reaction step. Communications Biology. 3 (1), 1-12.

6. Y. Hong, P. Arbter, W. Wang, L. Rojas, A. Zeng* (2020) Introduction of glycine synthase enables assimilation of C1 carbon and strongly impacts the metabolism in Clostridium pasteurianum. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 118, 1–15.

7. L. Zhou, J. Ren, Z. Li, J.Nie, C. Wang, and A. Zeng* (2019) Characterization and engineering of a Clostridium glycine riboswitch and its use to control a novel metabolic pathway for 5-aminolevulinic acid production in Escherichia coli. ACS Synth. Biol. 8 (10), 2327-2335.

8. C. Wang, J. Ren, L. Zhou, Z. Li, A. Zeng* (2019) An aldolase-catalyzed new metabolic pathway for the assimilation of formaldehyde and methanol to synthesize 2-keto-4-hydroxybutyrate and 1,3-propanediol in Escherichia coli, ACS Synth. Biol. 8, 2483-2493.

9. L. Chen, M. Chen, C. Ma, A. Zeng* (2018) Discovery of feed-forward regulation in L-tryptophan biosynthesis and its use in metabolic engineering of E. coli for efficient tryptophan bioproduction. Metabolic Engineering, 47, 434-444

10. Z. Chen, S. Rappert, A. Zeng* (2015) Rational design of allosteric regulation of homoserine dehydrogenase by a non-natural inhibitor L-lysine, ACS Synthetic Biology 4, 126-31.