Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Chih-Hang Wu

Chih-Hang Wu, co-first author of NRC4 gene cluster is not essential for bacterial flagellin-triggered immunity

Current Position: Postdoctoral Scientist, The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, UK; Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Education:  Ph.D., The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of East Anglia, UK.

Non-scientific Interests: baking, surfing, traveling

Brief bio: I started my scientific journey when I was a master’s student in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology at National Taiwan University where I studied the cell wall degrading enzymes secreted by plant pathogens. After spending three years as a research assistant at Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University, I joined Sophien Kamoun’s group in The Sainsbury Laboratory as a Ph.D. student. I was fascinated by the mechanisms by which plant immune receptors recognize pathogen effectors and confer disease resistance in important crops, and decided to keep working on this topic as a postdoc. I recently got a very exciting opportunity to establish my research group at the Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, as an Assistant Research Fellow from January 2020. My future research direction will be about understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant immunity networks and developing novel strategies for providing sustainable disease resistance in agronomically important crops.