Professor Qian received his B.A. in Astrophysics from Peking University in China in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 1989. Subsequently, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at University of Oregon and Caltech on biophysical chemistry and mathematical biology. Before joining the University of Washington, he was an assistant professor of Biomathematics at UCLA School of Medicine. From 1992-1994, he was a fellow with the Program in Mathematics and Molecular Biology (PMMB), a NSF-funded multi-university consortium. Professor Qian's main research interest is the mathematical approach to and physical understanding of biological systems, especially in terms of stochastic mathematics and nonequilibrium statistical physics. In recent years, he has been particularly interested in a nonlinear, stochastic, open system approach to cellular dynamics. Similar population dynamic approach can be applied to other complex systems and processes, such as those in ecology, infection epidemics, and economics. He believes his recent work on the statistical thermodynamic laws of general Markov processes can have applications in ecomomic dynamics and theory of values. In his research on cellular biology, his recent interest is in isogenetic variations and possible pre-genetic biochemical origins of oncogenesis.