Quan received his BS in Physics from Fudan University (复旦大学) , and PhD in Physics from Stony Brook University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. After a short stay at HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus, he did postdoctoral research in the Department of Physics and Center for Brain Science at Harvard University. He is now a Bairen Professor in the School of Life Sciences at University of Science and Technology of China.