Professor Tang received his bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Science and Technology of China. He then went on to conduct his PhD study in the United States and received his PhD degree at the Carnegie Mellon University in 1987. Professor Tang's research career had taken him to various distinguished labs in both Europe and the United States. He became a professor in the Department of Physics at Hong Kong Baptist University in late 1990s. He is also the director of the Center for Quantitative Systems Biology.