Prof. Cheng received his doctoral degree from the Department of Marine Biotechnology and Resources at National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) in 2007. Following his doctoral studies, he pursued postdoctoral research with Prof. William Fenical at the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, and later with Prof. Lie-Fen Shyur at the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center, Academia Sinica.

In 2012, Dr. Cheng began his academic career as an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Natural Products, Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU). He was subsequently promoted to the position of professor. In 2020, he transitioned to the Department of Marine Biotechnology and Resources at NSYSU, where he has served as Chairman since 2021.

Prof. Cheng's research interests lie in natural product chemistry and drug discovery, particularly focusing on marine natural products derived from marine invertebrates and microorganisms. His work involves the separation, identification, and biosynthetic pathways of these compounds. With the increasing importance of marine-derived drugs, Prof. Cheng aims to make significant contributions to marine natural product chemistry.

The ocean accounts for 70% of the total surface area of ​​the earth. In terms of animals, among the 34 animal phyla discovered so far, marine life accounts for 33 phyla. These disparate proportions show that the ocean has preserved the earth. most of the world's biological diversity. Due to their relatively special growth environment, organisms in the ocean are affected by various physical and chemical factors such as seawater pressure, ocean currents, and waves, seawater temperature, light intensity, dissolved oxygen in the water, chemical elements in the water, etc. Their evolutionary patterns and lifestyles are quite different from those of terrestrial organisms. Therefore, using marine biological resources to explore new drugs is our main research direction.

 At present, a variety of secondary metabolites with different activities have been found in marine organisms such as seaweeds, corals, ascidians, sponges, and even marine microorganisms. In addition to isolating the chemical components of marine organisms and analyzing their structures, Studying the biosynthetic pathways of marine natural products, synthesizing marine natural products, and analyzing the relationship between activity and structure are also the main research directions. The current research topics of marine natural products are Zoanthus sp. and Palythoa sp.), mangrove plants, and halophilic fungi. 

We also use anti-dengue virus natural products as the research target. At present, we have found that many Chinese herbal medicines and land plants, such as Swietenia macrophylla and Severinia buxifolia, have good anti-dengue virus activity and can also treat tumors. A series of ecdysone compounds with inhibitory activity against dengue virus type 2 were found in Palythoa mutuki. These research results provide new opportunities for the development of natural antiviral products.