Recognizing Plant Physiology author Zhikai Liang

Zhikai Liang, first author of Genetic and epigenetic variation in transposable element expression responses to abiotic stress in maize

Current Position: Postdoctoral Associate, Nathan Springer Lab, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota

Education: PhD Agronomy, James Schnable Lab, Center for Plant Science Innovation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; BS Plant Genetics and Breeding, Nanjing Agricultural University

Non-scientific Interests: Tennis, cuisine and traveling

Brief bio: How could plants regulate themselves in response to environments? — this process could be long-term, short-term or even transient and this is a biological question that I always wonder. We are fortunate to live at a data explosion era and big data enables us to reinvestigate this question more comprehensively. When I was a PhD student with Prof. James Schnable, I was used to apply genetic and high-throughput phenotyping approaches to study underlying connections between genotype and phenotype in the Panicoideae (e.g. maize, sorghum, pearl millet). After I joined Prof. Nathan Springer’s Lab as a postdoc associate, I worked on exploring functional variations of transposable elements (TEs) in different maize lines, such as transcriptional responses of TEs  to abiotic stresses and contributions of TEs to phenotypic variations. I believe utilizing big data, classical genetics and artificial intelligence would provide novel opportunities on crop improvements.

 

姓名：梁智凯

当前职位：明尼苏达大学，植物与微生物学系，Nathan Springer实验室博士后

教育经历：内布拉斯加大学林肯分校，植物科学创新中心，James Schnable实验室博士；南京农业大学植物遗传育种专业本科

兴趣爱好：网球，烹饪，旅行

个人简介：“植物如何通过调节自身来响应环境？”— 这可以是一个长期的，短期的或者瞬时的过程，这也是一个我所感兴趣的生物学问题。我们很幸运生活在一个数据爆发的时代，大数据使我们可以来重新更加全面地审视这个问题。当我在James Schnable实验室读博士时，我利用遗传学和高通量表型组学的方法在多个黍亚科(比如玉米，高粱，珍珠粟)物种中来研究基因和表型之间的潜在联系。作为博士后进入Nathan Springer实验室后，我主要研究玉米不同品系之间的转座子(TE) 功能变异, 例如TE在非生物胁迫下转录组水平的响应和TE对于表型的贡献。我相信利用大数据，经典遗传学以及人工智能的方法可以为作物改良提供新的机会。