The “State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution”, located at Kunming Institute of Zoology, was established on the basis of the previous“Key laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution” of Chinese Academy of Sciences, which was established in 1990. The lab has got would recognition in the research fields of Genetic Resource Collection and Conservation, Human Origin and Migration, Origin of Primate Cognition, Origin of New Genes and the Genetic Diversity of Domestic Aanimals etc. On 6th Nov. 2007, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China approved to establish the state key laboratory, and accepted it on 17th Sep.2009.

The 3 major research areas of the key lab have been set to “Evolution and conservation of the diverse genetic resources”, “Evolution of genes and genomes” and “Genetics, development and evolution”.

The laboratory has 99 staff members, half of which having Ph.D. degrees. There is one academician, 18 principal investigators, 12 associate professor in the lab. There are currently 17 research groups, including one innovation team of the Natural Science Foundation of China. There are about 100 graduate students currently. The director of the key lab is academician Yaping Zhang, and the director of the academic committee is academician Zuoyan Zhu. 

The lab is currently holding or participating in tens of the state projects, including key projects from the National Basic Research Program (973), the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the CAS Innovation Program. Since 2006, the lab has published more than 500 papers indexed by SCI (Science Citation Index), some were on top journals including Nature and Science. Awards the lab has also won including 1 Biodiversity Leadership Award, 1 Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, 8 First Prize for Science and Technology Progress at provincial or ministry level, 1 Yunnan Outstanding Contribution Award, 1 Cheung Kong Scholar Achievements Awards and 1 National Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis.

The lab is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments, including Automated DNA Sequencer, Microarray Scanner, GenomeLab SNPstream, High Performance Computing and Cluster System etc. The equipments of the lab valued more than RMB 50 million in total. 

The aim of the key laboratory is to make the lab center of researches on genetic resources and evolution in China and also in the world in some aspects.