Lou Zhicen

Lou Zhicen was a Chinese pharmacognosist and educator who graduated from the University of London. He was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a vice-president of the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association. He was also a member of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission and a chief editor of Chinese Pharmaceutical Journal and Bulletin of Chinese Materia Medica. He was an associate chief editor of Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica and a graduate tutor of Tu Youyou, who is a Nobel laureate in medicine. Lou was born in Xiaofeng County (now Anji County), Zhejiang, China on January 28, 1920, to a family of physicians. He attended Xiaofeng County Sun Yat-sen Primary School and Zhejiang Provincial Huzhou Junior High School. In 1936, he was accepted to Zhejiang Provincial Xianghu Village Normal School and he entered Zhejiang Provincial Joint Normal School in February 1939. In the summer of 1939, he was accepted to National Military Medical Academy, after graduation, he taught there. In 1943, he became a member of the Chinese Chemical Society and he was an editor of Quarterly Journal of Pharmacy. In September 1945, he entered the University of London, where he majored in pharmacognosy. He took up a post as research assistant in the Department of Pharmacology in 1948. He returned to China in January 1951 and in that year became an associate professor of the Department of Pharmacy at Zhejiang University. Seven months later, he taught at Peking University Medical School (later Beijing Medical College, now Peking University Health Science Center). He was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in June 1994. He died on March 23, 1995, in Beijing.