Shanghai Alcohol Research Center is a newly established collaborative and multidisciplinary research unit at the Institution for Nutritional Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences located in Shanghai, China. The Center provides a strong and effective infrastructure of facilities, staff, and an optimum research environment to (1) support new exploratory and ongoing alcohol research; (2) create and implement mechanisms for the transfer of information created from the research to health professionals of the local and world community; and (3) train students in the area of alcohol research. The Center consists of a team of scientific investigators with broad-based experiences and interests in many disciplines including the molecular biology, genetics, reactive oxygen species, nutrition, cancer biology and immunology, which allows for comprehensive examination of the causes of alcoholism and its effects on human life within the variety of Chinese populations.