Xu Genjun, male, Han nationality, is a native of She County, Anhui Province. He graduated from the Chemistry Department of Fudan University in 1957.
A biochemist, Xu served as a researcher at the Shanghai Biochemistry Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. As an academician, he used natrium-ammonia to deoxidize insulin sulfur bonds. He later re-oxidized the bonds to produce insulin with biological energy in researching the artificial synthesis of ox insulin. His academic studies also include researching natural peptides in protein structural function – he discovered that an enzyme had the modular basis of information transfer among the intermediate phosphorous.
Xu's more recent work has focused on folding and unfolding of structural fields. In 1991, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.