On March 1, HZAU-Corteva joint seminar hosted by the maize team of HZAU was held in the meeting room of the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement. Attendees included researchers from Corteva Agriscience, and more than 100 teachers and students from the HZAU maize team and other universities such as China Agricultural University, Henan Agricultural University, Sichuan Agricultural University and Northeast Agricultural University. Nine professors formed a judge panel to grade and comment on the reports of the PhD reporters.
Li Lin, professor from Plant Science & Technology College, delivered the opening speech. He expressed his gratitude for the presence of domestic and foreign researchers, and hoped that attendees could display and deepen exchanges and cooperation to promote the combination of cutting-edge research and new ideas in maize breeding.
Dr. Tom Greene, research director of Corteva, agriculture division of DowDuPont, introduced the plant biology forum globally sponsored by Corteva. Dr. Greene believed that such forum could not only improve students' coordination ability, social skill and team spirit, but also promote the development of plant science. After that, Dr. Greene gave a lecture titled "Targeted Breeding Applications with CRISPR-Cas". He sketched the history of genome editing technology and introduced its wide application in the agricultural sector of Corteva.
Dr. Tom-Greene gives the report
9 doctoral candidates of HZAU maize team who won DuPont Pioneer scholarship and 2 doctoral candidates from China Agricultural University gave the reports about their research progress, and showed the frontier development of maize research in China. The judges asked questions and gave students advice on research methods, logic and expression. Next, professors from other universities shared their research progress. Zhou Yu, an associate professor from Northeast Agricultural University, talked about genetic variation and pathogenesis of rice black-streaked dwarf disease on maize. Wang Guifeng, a professor from Henan Agricultural University, analyzed the genetic regulation of storage protein accumulation in endosperm of maize, Feng Xuanjun, a lecturer of Sichuan Agricultural University, introduced the identification, characteristic analysis and functional verification of a new chimeric gene.
Yan Jianbing, Dean of the College of Plant Science & Technology, made a concluding speech. He spoke highly of the meeting and once again expressed his gratitude to Corteva and other agricultural universities for their support. The seminar ended up with Dr. Greene’s award presenting to the winning reporters.
