Shumin Duan is a neuroscientist. He serves as a professor and the dean of Zhejiang University Faculty of Medicine, Hangzhou, China. He got his Ph. D. from Kyushu University in Japan in 1991 and received a postdoctoral training at University of Hawaii and University of California at San Francisco during 1997-1999. His research interests focuses on the function and the mechanisms of neuron-glia interactions in health and disease. He has made a number of contributions in the field of Neuroscience, including the roles of glial cells in synaptic plasticity and mechanisms of signaling molecule release from glial cells. He is an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS).  He is the president of Chinese Society for Neuroscience and a council member of International Brain Research Organization. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience Bulletin and an editorial board member in several international neuroscience journals.