Title:Conceptual understanding and practical application of molecular mechanisms regarding interaction between rice and pathogen

Time:5 pm, November 11, 2021

Venue: N8T07

Introduction of Speaker:

Dr. Chen Xuewei is currently the director ofthe State Key Laboratory of Crop Gene Exploration and Utilization in Southwest China, the executive deputy director of the academic committee of Sichuan Agricultural University.He is a Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of Chinese Ministry of Education, and has received the national fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and the Innovation Research Group Project. He is serving as the vice president of both Sichuan provincial society of plant pathology and society of cell and biochemistry. Besides, he is serving as the editorial board member of Journal of Integrated Plant Biology, Phytopathology Research, Stress BiologyandJournal of Botany. He has been awarded many sepcial funds for national talents, such as as the young and middle-aged leading talents in science and technology innovation, the innovative talents promotion plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology. He won the first prize of natural science of Sichuan Science and Technology Progress Award in 2020, the first "scientific exploration Award" of Tencent, the 2nd "Sichuan outstanding talent award" and the typical representative of "Sichuan Teachers' style" in 2018.

He has devoted to the conceptual and applied science of rice blast disease by studying the genetic basis of rice disease resistance and the molecular pathogenesis of the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. His efforts in this research filed have resulted in publication of 77 scientific papers, of which 36 papers have been published in Cell, Science, Nature Microbiology, PNAS and other international prestigousjournalswith him being thecorrespondingor co-corresponding author.His scientific publications havegained high remarks and citations from renowned experts worldwide. For example,fourof his publicationsreceived special comments by international famous experts. In close cooperation with crop breeders, he has applied rice disease resources and conceptual discoveries to improve the broad-spectrum resistance of a batch of important rice parental materials, leading to the registration of 20 elite hybrid rice varieties.He has also developed new control targets and related control drugs according to the discovered new pathogenesis mechanism of rice blast fungus. Some of scientific achievements were selected as the top ten progress in China's life sciences in 2017 and major scientific research progress in China's Agricultural Sciences in 2017 and 2018.