Graduated from Wuhan Medical College in 1962. Expert of pharmacogenetics and clinical pharmacology,academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering. Chief Professor of National Key Discipline of Pharmacology.

After returning to China in 1991, he worked in the Institute of Genetics and Pharmacology of Hunan Medical University and established the first clinical pharmacology institute in China; served as the vice president of Hunan Medical University in 1995; served as the Director of Institute of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology of Central South University from 1999 to 2002; in 2002, served as the director of the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology of Central South University; in 2005, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; in 2019, he served as a member of the first academic department of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Prof. ZHOU has been engaged in the teaching, research and transformation of genetic pharmacology and pharmacogenomics for years. He discovered and clarified mechanisms and laws that cause ethnic and individual differences by genetic factors, and established genetic pharmacology theoretical system with national and ethnic characteristics.