Xinhua Hospital Dermatology Chief Yao Zhirong Receives SJTU 2026 Presidential Award

On April 6, at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's 2026 Global Alumni Homecoming Day held under the theme “Gathering at the Source for 130 Years, Creating the Future Together,” the university announced the winners of its 2026 Presidential Award. Yao Zhirong, director of Xinhua Hospital's Skin Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Center and director of the SJTU Institute of Dermatology, was among the recipients. Yao established China's diagnostic criteria for atopic dermatitis in infants and children, proposing that most cases diagnosed as “eczema” in China are in fact atypical atopic dermatitis — a shift that has markedly raised detection rates and benefited an estimated 70 million patients.

Over more than a decade of work he identified and named a new disease internationally, CAOP syndrome, helping patients who had suffered for over 20 years start anew, and he diagnosed China's first case of SAM syndrome. He pioneered intravenous lidocaine block therapy for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis and was the first in the world to use omalizumab for epidermolysis bullosa. His honors include National Health System Advanced Worker, the 6th Distinguished Chinese Physician Fok Ying Tung Award and the first prize of the Huaxia Medical Science Award.

He has led over 40 research projects and published more than 160 SCI papers.