Training | Positions | Activities/Honors | Publications | Martial Arts/Qigong Lineage

Dr. Shin Lin (林欣博士), the Director of the Laboratory for Mind-Body Signaling and Energy Research, holds full professor appointments in the Department of Developmental & Cell Biology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine, 加州大學爾灣分校).  He is also a member of the faculty of the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine and the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Neuroscience at UC Irvine, and held a Visiting Professorship at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from 2005 to 2007.  In 2008, he was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to a 4-year term on the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Lin received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Davis, M.S. in Chemistry from San Diego State University, and Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from UCLA.  After postdoctoral training in the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, he joined the faculty of the Thomas C. Jenkins Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University in 1974.  In 1983, he was appointed Chair of Biophysics, a position he held for over a dozen years.  From 1992-1996, he was also the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies of the School of Arts and Sciences and the Head of the Graduate Board of the University.  During his tenure at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Lin played an active role in the founding of several University-wide units and programs, including the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, the Cardiovascular Mechanics Research Center, the Institute for Biophysical Research on Macromolecular Assemblies, and the Intercampus Graduate Program in Molecular Biophysics.  Dr. Lin was recruited by UC Irvine to become the Dean of the School of Biological Sciences in 1997.  From 2000 to 2002, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Biomedical Initiatives at UC Irvine, providing high-level academic coordination for new teaching, research, and corporate development programs and projects that span several Schools and Departments on campus

Dr. Lin is an internationally known expert on multidisciplinary studies on the regulation of the cellular structure and movement of normal and cancer cells.  A specific area of expertise of Dr. Lin’s research group is the determination of the mechanism of action of natural products and cellular factors that affect the structure of cytoskeletal and contractile proteins and their role in cellular movement and signal transduction in muscle and nonmuscle cells.  He has published widely in leading international journals (e.g., Science, Nature, Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA), as well as more specialized publications in the basic (e.g., Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Cell Biology) and applied biological and biomedical sciences (e.g., Cancer Research, Blood, Journal of Neurochemistry, Infection & Immunity, Journal of Biomedical Material Research).  Related to his research in the above areas, he received a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in 1982.

In addition to his institutional activities, Dr. Lin has served on the Cell Biology Public Advisory Panel of the National Institutes of Health (1980-1983), on the editorial board of the Journal of Receptor Research (1980-1984), and as the Biophysics Editor of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (1992-1997).  He was a Founder and Visiting Director of the Cell Biology Laboratory in the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan (1988-1990), a guest lecturer at the Institute of Biophysics and the Institute of Cell Biology of the China Academy of Sciences (1982), and President of the Society of Chinese Biophysics in America (1996-1998).  Since his return to California in 1997, he has served as a member of the boards of directors of Orange County’s Life Science Industry Council, the Orange County Biotechnology Alliance, and Southern California’s Chinese American Professional Society.

Dr. Lin also has an extensive background and training in the Chinese martial arts and mind-body practices, and in Complementary and Alternative Medicine.  Starting as a teenager in Hong Kong, he received advanced training from a dozen international leaders in different styles of Qigong (Wudang, Sum Yee, Pan Gu), Tai Chi (Chen and Yang Styles), and Chinese Martial Arts (e.g., Shaolin, White Crane, Wing Chun, Tai Shing Pek Kwar, Hsing I, Baqua).  He has received such titles as a certified graduate of the Luk Chi Fu White Crane Kung Fu Research Institute (Hong Kong), Honorary President of the Tai Shing Pek Kwar Martial Arts Association (Hong Kong), highest degree black belt at the Chinese Martial Arts Training Center (Taipei), and 9^th degree gold belt at the Wing Chun Academy of Maryland (Baltimore).  In the past decade, he has been training and conducting research with Grandmaster Chen Zheng-Lei, 19^th generation family heir of Chen Style Tai Chi from Chenjiagou (Chen Family Village) in China.  In 2010, he was formally accepted into the circle of “In-Door Disciples” by Grandmaster Chen.  In addition to his basic training in Tai Shing Pek Kwar herbal formulae for sports injury and collaborative research with the Institute of Materia Medica (Shanghai) on herbal compounds with anti-fungal and anti-cancer activities, he completed a series of courses at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine in the areas of Oriental Medicine, Manipulative Therapies, Dietary Supplements & Diets, and Mind-Body Medicine (2002-2004).  In 2000, Dr. Lin shifted his research interest to the application of modern technologies to study physiological and bioenergetic changes accompanying mind-body practices and other Eastern medical therapies.  In 2002, he started to organize a dozen laboratories in the U.S., China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea to form the International Alliance for Mind-Body Signaling and Energy Research.  He was a member of the strategic planning committee on Energy Medicine (2004) and Chair of the Think Tank Working Group on Biofield Energy Medicine (2006) for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institute of Health, and is currently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine and the BioMed Central journal Chinese Medicine, and a member of the National Advisory Council on Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.