Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Li-Bo Han

Li-Bo Han, First author of The cotton apoplastic protein CRR1 stabilizes chitinase 28 to facilitate defense against the fungal pathogen Verticillium dahliae

Current Position: Associate professor of Haixia institute of Science and Technology, Fujian Agriculture And Forestry University, Fuzhou, China

Educations: 2008-2014, Ph. D. Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academic of Sciences, 2014-2017, Postdoc, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Non-scientific Interests: Reading, playing basketball and table tennis

Brief bio: I was trained in cell biology and biochemistry in Prof. Gui-Xian Xia’ lab during my Ph. D. studies at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academic of Sciences. After graduation, I joined the group of Prof. Zhao-Sheng Kong to continue studies of plant cell biology. During the past years, I was focused on investigation of the molecular mechanisms controlling cotton fiber development as well as cotton’s defense responses against Verticillium dahliae infection. Particularly, I have been interested in the functional characterization of secretory proteins such as NRX1 and CRR1 in cotton apoplastic immunity. These works provide candidate genes for breeding wilt-resistant cotton cultivars through molecular breeding. Currently, I am working in Prof. Ding-Zhong Tang’s group in Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University with a research aim of uncovering the invading behavior of rice blast fungus at molecular cellular level.