Prof. Xintao Wu , a physical chemist(structural chemist), was born in Shishi, Fujian Province on April 6, 1939. He graduated from Chemistry Department, Xiamen University in 1960, and completed his graduate training with major in physical chemistry at Fuzhou University in 1966. Now he is a professor and executive deputy director with Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Professor Wu, whose research interest is mainly structural chemistry and cluster chemistry, has published 115 papers in famous Chinese and overseas scholastic journals. In the fields of transition metal sulfide chemistry and cluster chemistry, he summarized the relationship between the coordination types of sulfur atoms and unit constructions, and illustrated the important function of lone pair electron number and coordination number of sulfur atoms on cluster syntheses, from which the rationale was provided for designs and syntheses of new cluster compounds. Wu first designed and prepared a series of novel cluster compounds with new types of configurations. Based on his valuable contributions to cluster chemistry, he was honored as "the world's leading scholar" by Journal of Cluster Science published in the United States. What is more worthy of mention is that Professor Wu invented a new system of self-assembly syntheses of inorganic one-dimensional high polymeric compounds, investigated the effects of valences and sizes of cations on unit constructions of anions, and successfully synthesized a series of novel inorganic one-dimensional high polymeric compounds by self-assembly reactions. His creative ideas about the molecular design and the experimental synthetic method contain their unique features, which have already reached the world advanced levels, establishing a wide-spread influence over the concerning field. Wu was successively awarded 12 prizes for his outstanding scientific achievements at various levels of the whole Nation, Fujian Province and the Ministry of Science and Technology. 

Professor Wu was elected Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999.