This year, The Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST) entrusted the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) to review its 30 State Key Laboratories in Biological Sciences. The review committee members included prominent biological scientists, as well as MOST and NSFC officials. Recently, MOST announced the results: our State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN) passed the review and was evaluated as one of nine "Excellent Laboratories".

In February and March of 2011, NSFC divided the 30 labs into 5 groups based on their research areas. The group review includes report by the laboratory director, selected scientific talks, interview with laboratory members, site visit and close-door discussion. The top two or three laboratories of each group were qualified to attend the second round evaluation in May and compete for the "Excellent Laboratory" title.

SKLN was established in 2007, based on the former Key Laboratory of Neurobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, established in 1989. The current research areas of SKLN are neural development, synaptic plasticity and learning and memory, sensory processing, neural stem cell and the mechanism of neural diseases. The present director of SKLN is Prof. Yi-Zheng Wang, and the chair of the academic committee is Prof. Mu-Ming Poo.