Professor ZHU Jiankang from Purdue University visited Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology and delivered an academic lecture titled “Epigenetic silencing and anti-silencing mechanisms in plants” at the lecture hall of IGA on June 23, 2014. The lecture mainly introduced the mechanisms of epigenetic silencing and anti-silencing and discussed the existing problems in this field, which plays an important role in the progress of epigenetic. He also introduced the methylation mechanism of ROS1, IDM1 protein in plants. These researches are of great importance, which have laid a solid theoretical foundation for the plant resistance.

The lecture intrigued a hot discussion between Professor ZHU Jiankang and the attendees from Northeast Agriculture University, Heilongjiang Agricultural Reclamation Breeding Center and researchers from IGA .

The lecture facilitator, Dr. Kong Fanjiang, Vice PI of one-hundred talent program from IGA also made a further discussion about their cooperative project.

Professor ZHU Jiankang has been working for years on plant molecular biology research. He is one of the top scientists in this field. ZHU Jiankang has been an author on more than 300 scientific papers, including many studies in Cell, Nature, and Science. In 2011, he established and served as the director of the Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology at Chinese Academy of Sciences.