Hailong Yang: Plant Physiology First Author

Hailong Yang, first author of “Tissue-specific transcriptomics reveal functional differences in floral development”

Current Position: PhD student at Biology Department of East Carolina University

Education: M.Sc. in Crop Genetics and Breeding, Institute of Crop Sciences at Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. B.Sc. in Crop Biotechnology, Henan Agricultural University

Non-scientific Interests: history, movie, computer

Brief bio: I was exposed to maize research when I joined Dr. Jihua Tang’s group as undergraduate intern. Fascinated by maize, I then worked on various aspects of maize research like bioinformatic analysis of maize sequencing data and development in Dr. Chuanxiao Xie’s group as a master student. Currently, I am a PhD student in Dr. Beth Thompson’s Lab at East Carolina University. One of my research projects focuses on understanding how flowers with different fates develop in plants, which is important to understand the factors controlling floret abortion and sterility. We revealed that downstream physiological processes rather than master regulator genes may play key roles in floral meristem fate. We also identified a novel boundary domain between the upper and lower floret and uncovered pectin function in programmed cell death of plant floral development, which may be a critical factor in floret fertility. In the future, I hope to combine big data with molecular/genetic experiments to better understand how plants develop.

 

姓名：杨海龙

目前职位：东卡罗来纳大学生物系博士生

教育：作物遗传育种硕士， 中国农业科学院作物科学研究所。作物生物技术学士，河南农业大学

非科学兴趣：历史、电影、计算机

简介：我自本科阶段就以本科实习生加入到汤继华博士的玉米团队开始接受玉米研究训练。随后我在中国农业科学院作物科学研究所攻读作物遗传育种硕士，师从谢传晓博士从事玉米各方面的系统性地训练，其中包括玉米发育学和生物信息学等多个方面的工作。目前我在东卡罗来纳大学的贝丝·汤姆森博士实验室从事博士生研究。其中的一项课题是理解植物中不同命运的小花如何发育，这对解析小花败育和不育的至关重要。该研究表明作为上下小花分生组织发育命运的主要调节基因可能不存在。相反，核心的生理学过程可能扮演着关键角色。此外我们鉴定到上下小花之间存在一个新相界, 揭示了果胶修饰在植物花发育程序性死亡过程中发挥着关键作用，这有可能对小花育性十分重要。未来我希望进一步从事大数据的功能挖掘和分子遗传实验验证，以更好地了解植物如何发育。