Lu Bai graduated from East China Normal University with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1982 and obtained a neurobiology doctoral degree from Cornell University (United States) in 1990. Lu has studied synapse and neuroplasticity as well as related brain diseases, becoming a globally influential scientist and a field leader.

Lu has been working full-time in the School of Medicine at Tsinghua University since 2013 as an executive deputy dean of the school and is responsible for its overall work. From 2009 to 2013, Lu worked as the vice-president of GSK China's Research and Development Center and was in charge of the biological department's strategic development decision-making, the research and development of drugs for neurodegenerative disease and the department's external business development and cooperation. Before this, Lu worked in the American National Institutes of Health for 13 years.