Professor Zhong's major research interest includes molecular biochemical engineering, advanced fermentation technology, and synthetic biology, covering the application areas of biopharmaceuticals, biorefinery and bioenergy, agriculture, environmental protection and bioremediation, food and fermentation industries.

The major scientific contribution made by Dr. Zhong and his group includes: 1) A new centrifugal impeller bioreactor for shear-sensitive biological systems by developing a new reactor-designing concept, which was adopted by his national and international colleagues; 2) Pioneering work on quantitative studies on effects of light irradiation, shear stress, oxygen supply, and mixing on secondary metabolite production by plant cell cultures, which were well cited by international groups; 3) A novel two-stage fermentation process by integrating static and agitation modes for enhanced production of secondary metabolites by liquid cultivation of higher fungi, whose concept was successfully applied to other higher fungi fermentation by other groups; 4) Signal transduction engineering of plant cells and higher fungi fermentations for hyper-production of secondary metabolites, whose methodologies and new elicitors were also adopted by his peers in different cultivation systems; and 5) Enhanced production of validamycin A (an important agri-antibiotic) and ganoderic acid (an important anti-tumor and anti-metastatic triterpenoid) by metabolic engineering of Streptomyces hygroscopicus 5008 (actinomycete) and Ganoderma lucidum (medicinal mushroom), respectively.