Deng currently assumes several positions, including deputy director for the Academic Committee of IVPP, and professor of palaeontology at the graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He and his team had first major breakthrough in the Zanda Basin, from where they discovered fossil materials of Tibetan wooly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) on 22 August 2007.
Their research eventually lead to in-depth knowledge of the dramatic rising of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its great impact to evolution of mammals with respect to climate changes.
His team reported in 2011 that the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is actually the place of origin of the woolly rhinos during the Pliocene Ice Age, from where they evolved and spread out into other Asian and European regions.
[12][13] Deng was the first to note the unusual fossil description while proofreading the manuscript for publication of the discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.