Hormone Metabolism and Signaling in Plants

Dr. Jiayang Li was awarded the Degree of Bachelor of Agronomy from Anhui Agricultural University in 1982, the Degree of Master of Science from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1984, and PhD in Biology from Brandeis University, USA, in 1991. After completing his postdoctoral research in the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) at Cornell University, Dr. Li was recruited as a Professor of plant molecular genetics by IGDB in 1994. Dr. Li’s laboratory is mainly interested in the molecular genetics of higher plant development with a focus on the biosynthesis and action of plant hormones including auxin, brassinosteroid and strigolactones. Dr. Li has made seminal contributions to establishing forward genetics approaches to understand rice growth habit and to improve rice yield and quality through rational design, with his achievements receiving world-wide attention from scientific websites and public media. His achievements have also been widely recognized by scientists and his publications have been highlighted in commentaries and cited by review articles, becoming a Thomson-Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Plant and Animal Sciences. Dr. Li served as the Director General of IGDB from 1999 to 2004, Vice President of CAS from 2004 to 2011, and President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Vice-Minister of Agriculture for the People’s Republic of China from 2011 to 2016. Dr Li was elected a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001, a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2004, a Foreign Associate of the USA National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2011, a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2012, a Foreign Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2013, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2015. Dr. Chuanyou Li received his Ph. D. in Genetics at the Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1999. He did his post-doc training from1999 to 2003 in the DOE-Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) at Michigan State University. Since 2003, he serves as a professor and group leader at the State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Institute of Genetics & Developmental Biology, CAS. Research in the Chuanyou Li laboratory is aimed at understanding the action mechanisms of jasmonate, which plays vital roles in regulating plant immunity and a wide range of developmental processes. Dr. Li and his colleagues found that the long-distance mobile signal in regulating systemic plant immunity is jasmonate, rather than the peptide systemin. He led more than 60 Chinese Scientists to take part in the International Tomato Genome Consortium and successfully decoded the genome of tomato, a unique model system for plant immunity and fruit biology. He connected the PLETHORA stem cell transcription factor pathway to jasmonate signaling and illustrated a molecular framework for jasmonate-induced regulation of root growth through interaction with the growth hormone auxin. His lab has a long term focus on the transcriptional mechanism of MYC2, a basic-helix-loop-helix protein that regulates diverse aspects of jasmonate responses. He found that turnover of MYC2 stimulates its transcription activity, revealing an ‘‘activation by destruction’’ mechanism to regulate plant stress response and adaptive growth. He also linked MYC2 to the MED25 subunit of the Mediator complex in the transcription machinery. He has published more than 80 research papers in journals such as Nature, Nature Genetics, PNAS, Plant Cell and PLoS Genetics, which received more than 4000 citations. Dr. Li serves as editor for several international journals including Molecular Plant, Plant Molecular Biology and Annals of Botany. Steven Smith began his scientific career as a technician in the Botany Department at Rothamsted Experimental Station in the UK, where he conducted bioassays of auxins, cytokinins and gibberellins. He later completed a Master’s degree studying cytokinin action in tissue culture cells at Indiana University USA, under the mentorship of Carlos O. Miller, the discoverer of kinetin and of organogenesis mediated by auxin and cytokinin. After his PhD at Warwick University UK and postdoctoral studies at CSIRO in Canberra Australia during which time he conducted research on the biosynthesis of chloroplast proteins, he was a lecturer in molecular biology at the Edinburgh University UK for 20 years, studying plant metabolism and development. He was awarded an Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship and moved to the University of Western Australia in 2005 where he was a founding member of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology. There he discovered the mode of action of karrikins and made important contributions to research on strigolactones, brassinosteroids and auxins. He has been Visiting Professor at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2013. He took up a new position at the University of Tasmania in 2015, and was recognised as a Thomson-Reuters ‘Highly Cited Researcher in Plant and Animal Sciences in 2016.

1. Hormone function in plants 2. Auxins 3. Cytokinins 4. Gibberellins 5. Abscisic acid 6. Ethylene 7. Jasmonates 8. Salicylic acid 9. Brassinosteroids 10. Strigolactones 11. Peptide hormones 12. Plant hormones and stem cells 13. Phytohormonal quantification based on biological principles 14. Quantitative analysis of plant hormones based on LC-MS/MS