Xiaoyan Wang,^1,2,3 Zi-Jiang Chen<sup>1,2,4,*,**

1</sup>Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China
²Key laboratory of Reproductive Endocrinology of Ministry of Education, National Research Center for Assisted Reproductive Technology and Reproductive Genetics, Shandong Provincial Clinical Medicine Research Center for Reproductive Health, Jinan, Shan
³State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
⁴Shanghai Key Laboratory for Assisted Reproduction and Reproductive Genetics, Shanghai, China

^*Correspondence: Center for Reproductive Medicine, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong, China. Tel: +86-531-85651189; E-mail: chenzijiang@hotmail.com
^**Dr. Zi-Jiang Chen, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chief Scientist and Director of Center for Reproductive Medicine, Shandong University, China. She is a leading academic physician in the field of obstetrics and gynecology and has been focusing on reproductive endocrinology, infertility and birth defects for over 30 years. She has led a series of multi-center clinical trials on critical issues in assisted reproduction and put forward an evolving standard about frozen embryos in clinical in vitro fertilization (IVF). She is also interested in the study of early embryo development and has advanced the understanding of activation mechanisms of the human embryonic genome and the establishment of chromatin structure during mammalian embryonic development. In addition, she owns patents of several innovative clinical technologies for assisted reproduction and birth defect prevention. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles in journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Nature, Cell, and Nature Genetics. She has received the second National Innovation Competition Award, China; the second Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award, China; and the Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation, among others. For more information, please visit the lab website: http://www.sduivf.sdu.edu.cn/.