Professor Jianxing He, Executive Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Thoracic Disease, has been elected as a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea, as recently announced by the Academy: https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/He_Jianxing.
Professor Jianxing He's election is a testament to the international academic community's high recognition of his outstanding contributions to precision diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, tubeless immediate rehabilitation surgery, and thoracic organ transplantation. It also marks a significant milestone, demonstrating that innovative achievements from Chinese clinical medicine have gained widespread global acknowledgment.
Professor He has long been dedicated to the front-line diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer and end-stage lung diseases, adhering to an integrated innovation pathway of 'clinical problems—scientific research breakthroughs—clinical translation'. He has forged a scientific closed-loop spanning the entire life cycle of respiratory diseases, positioning himself as a medical scientist reshaping global defense, diagnosis, treatment, and organ replacement.
Six Pillars of Scientific Impact
Pillar I: Macroscopic Epidemiological Definition and Major Public Health Crisis Response. Professor He led the publication of a high-resolution epidemiological landscape study of global childhood, adolescent, and young adult (AYA) cancers in the premier journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. During the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he orchestrated China's first nationwide cohort study on the macroscopic clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. These findings constituted the foundational empirical data for the World Health Organization (WHO) and governments worldwide in formulating early pandemic response guidelines.
Pillar II: Reconstructing the "Pan-Population" Universal Screening Paradigm and Molecular/Breath-Omics Triage System for Lung Cancer. Professor He established the clinical benefits of "Non-High-Risk Factor Lung Cancer Screening" based on the ultra-large-scale LUNG-CARE project involving over 1 million individuals. To address the resource overload brought by universal screening, he successfully developed a 12-VOC breath-omics triage model and a non-invasive DNA methylation/cfDNA fragmentomics classifier.
Pillar III: Pioneering the "Tubeless" Minimally Invasive Surgical System and Establishing the Economics of Instant Recovery Surgery. Professor He led his team in pioneering the globally innovative 'tubeless' immediate rehabilitation surgery paradigm performed under spontaneous breathing, completely eliminating the need for tracheal intubation and drainage tubes. These original technologies, rooted in Chinese clinical practice, have been adopted by international guidelines, offering a 'Chinese solution' to the global development of thoracic surgery.
Pillar IV: Conquering the "Black Box" of Cross-Species Immune Rejection and Leading the Clinical Translation of Lung Xenotransplantation. Facing severe donor shortages for end-stage lung diseases, Professor He successfully performed the world's first gene-edited pig-to-human lung xenotransplantation into a brain-dead recipient. This validated in vivo the underlying pathways by which gene editing overcomes hyperacute rejection, providing a scientific pathway out of the global lung donor shortage crisis.
Pillar V: Architecting Large AI Models for Respiratory Medicine and Intelligent Human-Machine Synergy Platforms. Professor He rapidly developed a CT-based clinical AI system for the precise diagnosis and prognosis of COVID-19, alongside a visual foundation model for lung CT and a pan-mediastinal neoplasm diagnosis system. By transforming highly experience-dependent surgical craftsmanship into replicable digital code, his work saves junior surgeons nearly 75% of their learning curve while helping senior surgeons prolong their occupational careers.
Pillar VI: Spearheading Global Multicenter Clinical Trials and Rewriting International Guidelines for Precision Oncology. As a core investigator, Professor He has spearheaded multiple international Phase III multicenter studies, including Neo-ADAURA, KEYNOTE-042, Evident and IMpower151. These studies directly established the global Standard of Care for perioperative and advanced-stage treatment in lung cancer patients with EGFR mutations and PD-L1 expression.
Bibliometric Evidence of Global Influence
Top-Tier Journal Dominance: Professor He has cumulatively published over 795 academic papers, covering the highest impact factor journals in the medical field including CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, The Lancet, NEJM, JAMA, Nature Medicine, and Cell.
Peak Scientific Impact: He achieved a formidable H-index of 73, with total citations exceeding 61,000+, demonstrating profound influence across both fundamental mechanisms and clinical translation.
Policy and Evidence-Based Translation: His epidemiological and health economics discoveries have been cited 620 times in policy and strategic documents by governments worldwide and the WHO. Furthermore, the clinical evidence he spearheaded or co-authored has been formally integrated into 69 international clinical guidelines.
About Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea brings together over 5,500 leading scholars from approximately 50 countries, including more than 90 Nobel laureates. Its Foreign Membership is a major academic honor conferred upon internationally distinguished scholars. The Foreign Membership of the Academia Europaea is designed to recognize scientists with outstanding international leadership and far-reaching influence. The election criteria are extremely rigorous: the selection process involves nomination by an existing member, followed by peer review through a disciplinary committee, cross-sectional evaluation by the academic sections, and final approval by the Board of Trustees. The evaluation emphasizes the candidate's sustained, original, and internationally recognized academic excellence in their respective field.