Title: Wheat disease resistance: Genomics, Genetics, and Breeding

　　Speaker: Zhiyong Liu

　　Time: 4：30 pm, October 30, 2020

　　Venue: N8T09

　　Introduction of Speaker:

　　Zhiyong Liu is the Principle Investigator of Wheat Genomic, Genetic and Breeding group of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof. Liu got his Bachelor degree from Hebei Agricultural University at Changli in 1984. After serving as Teaching Assistant and Lecturer for nine years, he went to Beijing Agricultural University (China Agricultural University) for postgraduate study (1993-1999) and was awarded Master and Ph D degree in 1996 and 1999, respectively. From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Liu did postdoctoral research at the Institute of Plant Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland and Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, USA. He discovered the primitive sex chromosome in Carica papaya in the first time and published a paper in Nature. He then backed to China Agricultural University as a full professor and was awarded the Distinguish Young Scholar by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. His laboratory worked on wheat genetic and breeding focusing on disease resistance. Prof. Liu’s lab moved to the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016 working on wheat genomics, genetics and breeding researches focused on identification, mapping and map-based cloning of important genes for disease resistance (powdery mildew, stripe rust, leaf rust, spot blotch, etc.) and agronomic traits (yield, plant architecture, etc.). His lab identified many new genes conferring resistance to powdery mildew, stripe rust, and spot blotch in wheat, and cloned the powdery mildew resistance genes Pm5e , Pm24 and Pm41 . They are using the genes identified to develop breeder friendly germplasms and wide adapted high-yielding new cultivars for the main wheat growing area. In the past years, Prof. Liu’s group has developed several new wheat cultivars, such as “Nongda 399”, “Nongda 1108”, “Nongda 2011”, “Nongda 2018” and “Kemai 1609” etc. and published more than 90 papers in Nature Communications, New Phytologist, Theoretical and Applied Genetics, The Crop Journal, Molecular Breeding, etc.