Youth Working Committee, IPP, successfully held the 3rd Youth Forum for Plant Protection in 2016 at the meeting room of the new research building of IPP-CAAS on 1 July, 2016. This Forum invited Associate Prof. LUO Feng from Clemson University, USA, and Dr. LI Shaofang from the University of California at Los Angeles, USA, to make academic presentations. Prof. LIU Wende, the Deputy Director of the Youth Working Committee, chaired the seminar.

Associate Prof. LUO made a presentation titled Ananlysis of citrus NBS genes and HLB tolerance related genes. Dr. Luo has been in analysis and mining of big data and bioinformatics analysis for long time. His current research focuses on the development of big data arithmetic and analytical system and the analysis and mining of high throughput biological data, computational genomics, biological network analysis, and the development and exploitation of bioinformatic data base and network resources. Dr. Luo introduced his work on Huanglongbing which threatens the citrus industry in USA and described the comparative analysis between tolerant and susceptible plants based on transcriptome. He explained the tolerance mechanism, combining the expression analysis of the key genes.

The topic of Dr. LI Shaofang’s presentation was Understanding epigenetics: molecular mechanisms of siRNA biogenesis and DNA methylation, which introduced the way of integrating classical genetics and bioinformatics to study RNA-mediated DNA methylation pathway and silencing effect of anti-methylation. Dr. LI told us the importance of siRNA and introduced how she deduced and validated step by step and finally found the crucial precursor that encode siRNA and its role in DNA methylation.

More than 80 participants, including DG ZHOU Xueping, Profs. WANG Guoliang, MA Chunsen, etc., together with postdoctors and graduates, attended the seminar. The attendees asked questions and the speakers patiently answered the questions. The good presentations won much applause. After the seminar, Dr. LUO Feng exchanged further with scientists in the Department of Plant Diseases and discussed with the IPP colleagues the possible directions for future collaboration.

Introduction to the speakers

Dr. LUO Feng
Dr. Luo is an associate professor at Clemson University, USA. He and his group is interested in in the analysis and mining of big data and bioinformatics. His current researches focus on the development of big data arithmetic and analytical system and the analysis and mining of high throughput biological data, computational genomics, biological network analysis, and the development and exploitation of bioinformatic data base and network resources. Dr. LUO has published 39 academic articles in the related areas and 18 articles in various academic meetings. He has accumulated rich research experience in the analysis and mining of biological big data.

Dr. LI Shaofang
Dr. LI Shaofang graduated from the University of California at riverside, USA, in 2014. She is currently doing a postdoctor at the University of California at Los Angeles. While she was doing her PhD, she integrated the classical genetics and bioinformatics to study the pathways of DNA methylation mediated by RNA and silencing effect of anti-methylation. During the period of her postdoctor, Dr. LI is engaged in developing the arithmetic of alternative splicing and analyzing the regulation networking between the alternative splicing and the epigenetic markers. Dr. LI has published several articles in top journals such as Genome Research, Nucleic Acid Research, etc.