Yingjun Yu: The Plant Cell First Author

Yingjun Yu, co-first author of BBX19 fine-tunes the circadian rhythm by interacting with PSEUDO-RESPONSE REGULATOR proteins to facilitate their repressive effect on morning-phased clock genes

Current position: PhD candidate in Prof. Lei Wang’s lab at Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Education: B.S. in Northwest A&F University, China

Non-scientific Interests: Reading, Music etc.

Brief Bio:

My keen interest in plants began with a class which I took about Plant Physiology during college, which refreshed my view on plants existing as lifeless creatures. Since then, I am eager to think how sessile plants deal with various difficult problems intelligently and grow well in the ever-changing environment. It is so fortunate for me to join the professor Lei Wang’s lab after graduating from university. In here, I found that the circadian clock, just acts as the “brain” of plants, in which it can not only regulate the fundamental growth and development processes of plants such as flowering time, but also respond to the changes in surrounding environment in a timely manner. More importantly, clock can even predict the upcoming trends of light and temperature signals, just like a “prophet” and “command” plants to prepare in advance. All these powerful capabilities of circadian clock make me realize the importance of circadian clock for plant fitness and survival. I am very pleased that our recent work can contribute to the research on fine-tuning regulation of clock. In the future, I will continue to focus on and work on the maintenance and regulation of circadian rhythms, hoping to explore the secrets of clock and decipher the “brain” of plants more deeply.

姓名：于英俊

目前职位：中国科学院植物研究所博士研究生

教育经历：西北农林科技大学学士

兴趣爱好：阅读、听音乐

简介：

对植物产生浓厚兴趣起源于一次大学植物生理学课，刷新了我心目中植物几乎等同于“死物”这一看法，自此怀揣着极大兴趣想要探究“不会动”的植物，在多变的生存环境中是如何聪明的处理各种棘手问题并活得多姿多彩。研究生阶段非常幸运地加入到王雷研究员的研究团队。在这里我发现生物钟就像“植物的大脑”，不但可以统筹植物开花结果等重要生长发育过程，还可以在周围环境发生变化时及时“调兵遣将”积极应对，甚至像“先知”一样可以预测环境变化趋势“未雨绸缪”，这也让我深刻认识到生物钟对于植物的重要性。很高兴我们最近的研究结果能为全面解析植物生物钟精准调控的机制研究贡献一份力量。未来，我仍会关注并致力于对植物生物钟稳定性调控的研究，希望能更全面认识并保护好“植物的大脑”。