Committee Members

Dr. Feng Yibin is currently a professor and Director of the School of Chinese Medicine, University of Hong Kong. Mainly engaged in the research, teaching and clinical consultation of integrated Chinese and Western medicine in the prevention and treatment of cancer and metabolic diseases.
He has published more than 600 various kind of publications, among which over 200 SCI papers in reputable international journals. He was listed as a Highly Cited Researcher (1/1000, Clarivate Analytics 2024) and the top 1% scholars for 8 consecutive years (ESI), and is also ranked in the top 2% scholar at Stanford University. (Up to 100 words)

Plant genomes are enriched with complex and evolutionarily diverse non-coding regulatory sequences that follow unknown cis-regulatory codes. In the last decade, high-throughput sequencing technologies have amassed vast regulomic data across various model plants. Here, we developed ChIP-Hub, a comprehensive database that integrates over 16,000 publicly available datasets from nearly 600 publications on model plant species. Using this extensive dataset, we systematically annotated tissue- and cell-specific regulatory elements, including promoters and enhancers, and constructed corresponding gene regulatory networks. Additionally, comparative genomics approaches were employed to explore the functional conservation of tissue-specific regulatory elements and chromatin states across species. We also developed the SeiPlant model, leveraging dilated convolutions with residual connections to capture both linear and nonlinear sequence features, along with spatial basis function layers to enhance model scalability. This AI framework effectively integrates large-scale plant regulomic data, enabling cross-species prediction of regulatory elements based solely on genomic sequences. This model enables to understand the molecular mechanisms of gene regulation, how mutations in cis-regulatory sequences alter their function, and consequently, how they impact plant traits. This understanding is ultimately crucial for designing synthetic regulatory sequences to enhance crop performance.

Inadvertent accumulation of arsenic (As) in rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a concern for people depending on it for their subsistence, as it verily causes epigenetic alterations across the genome as well as in specific cells. To ensure food safety, certain attempts have been made to nullify this highest health hazard encompassing physiological, chemical and biological methods. Albeit, the use of mycorrhizal association along with nutrient reinforcement strategy has not been explored yet. Molecular mechanisms of response and resistance of rice genotypes to As with or without phosphorus (P) nutrition and Serendipita indica (S. indica; S.i) colonization were explored by root transcriptome profiling in the present study. Results revealed that the resistant genotype had higher auxin content and root plasticity, which helped in keeping the As accumulation and P starvation response to a minimum under alone As stress. However, sufficient P supply and symbiotic relationship switched the energy resources towards plant’s developmental aspects rather than excessive root proliferation. Of note, this study showed that the As + S.i + P interactive treatment mellowed down the chaotic increase in heat shock proteins, and potentially induced early flowering genes by lengthening the telomere. Moreover, genes stimulating endogenous BR (CycD3) and their cross-talk with CK (Os11g0143300, Os12g0139400, Os01g0952500 and Os01g0197700), as well as SA
(Os11g0663100, Os03g0778000 and Os11g0669100), metal effluxer (P-type ATPase, K/Mg/Cd/Cu/Zn/Na/Ca/Na/H-transporter family protein) and detoxification related genes (glutathione-S-transferases), elevation of K+ transporter AKT1, Fe+ transporters (OsYSL2 and OsYSL15), and phosphate transporter PHT14, greatly contributed to As tolerance acquisition. Taken together, S. indica symbiosis fortified with adequate P-fertilizer can prove to be effective in minimizing As acquisition and accumulation in rice plants.

This study investigated the suitability of three as yet undescribed Ochna rhizomatosa biflavonoids, 2,3-dihydroochnaflavone-7ʹʹ,7-O-dimethylether (compound 1), 7,4ʹ-dihydroxyflavonol-[(C(3ʹ)-O-C(4ʹ)]-7-hydroxyflavonol (compound 2) and 7-O-methylkaempferol-[C-3′(I)-O-C-3′(II)]-luteolin (compound 3), against drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum, the most virulent human malarial parasite. Increase in resistance to available drugs warrants the need to search for new potent agents. Here we interacted compounds 1, 2, 3 and other isolates with the receptor protein (6YCX) responsible for P. falciparum survival and virulence, using the molecular docking approach. We employed FT-IR, NMR (1H and 13C), HR-ESIMS, UV-visible spectroscopy, biological activity and geometrical analysis, while electronic computations were performed using DFT/B3LYP6-31+G(2d,2p) level of theory. Result shows that compounds 1 (0.72 μM) and 3 (4.60 μM) exhibited promising antiplasmodial activity than the rest of the isolates which is largely attributed to the presence of methoxy groups at C7ʹ atoms. Frontier molecular orbital (FMO) analysis result shows that compounds 1 and 3 are better chelating agents, forming stable complexes with much better electrophilic and nucleophilic interactions than compounds 2, 4, and 5. Molecular docking results reveal that compounds 1, 2, 3 and 5 exhibit stronger binding affinities and contains higher conventional hydrogen bonding contributed by specific amino acid residues at the active site of 6YCX than the standard drugs; -10.0 kcal/mol, -9.4 kcal/mol, -9.8 kcal/mol, and -9.1 kcal/mol for compounds 1, 2, 3, and 5 respectively while artesunate and chloroquine had -8.7 kcal/mol and -5.7 kcal/mol respectively. This study contributes favorably to the ongoing quest for new drugs against devastating drug-resistant P. falciparum malaria parasite.

Taghreed Abdulrahim Alsufyani is an associated professor of Chemical ecology, bioorganic, and
natural products at Taif University, Science Faculty, Chemistry Department, Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. She received her PhD from Friedrich Schiller University-Jena, Germany under the
supervision of Thomas Wishard, and Georg Pohnert (2014). Master’s degree in natural products and
medicinal chemistry under supervision of Hassan Albar at KAU, Saudi Arabia (2008). She is
interested in understanding the infochemicals mediate the interactions between living organisms.

Noura Jahaz Alotaibi is an assistance professor of Entomology, Molecular Entomology and
Economic Entomology at Taif University, Science Faculty, Biology Department, Taif, Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. She received her PHD from King Saud University, Zoology Department, Saudi
Arabia in Molecular Diversity of Subterranean Termites (Order: Isoptera) in Riyadh and Taif Cities
(2019). Master’s degree in Ecological and Behavioral Studies on Some Termites Species in Taif
governorate. Taif University, Biology department. (2012). I am interested in understanding the
ecological and chemical relationships between living organisms, pets and bioenemies and
behavioral studies of insects. And I am interested in the molecular identification of insects

Zhengguo Li has completed his PhD from Southwest University and postdoctoral studies from University of Toulouse (France). He is the director of the Key Laboratory of Plant Hormone Regulation and Molecular Breeding of Chongqing, China. He has published more than 150 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of seven journals.

Center for Integrative Conservation & Yunnan Key Laboratory for Conservation of Tropical Rainforests and Asian Elephant, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun 666303, Yunnan, China.
R.K. Chaturvedi (Email: ravikantchaturvedi10@gmail.com; ravi@xtbg.ac.cn)

Jeremiah Mpumelelo Hlahla completed his PhD at the University of the Free State in South Africa in 2024. He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of the Free State. He has published a few peer-reviewed research papers. He is also a student council member at the South African Association of Botanists (SAAB) since January 2024. In 2022 He won an award for the best masters (MSc) student in Botany, and in 2024 he won a prize for the third-best PhD presentation at the University of Johannesburg. He is very passionate about plant stress physiology.

Dr., Prof. Feibo Wu received her PhD in 2003 at Zhejiang University (ZJU), China. Her main research interest is Molecular Physiology of Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crops. She has published over 150 papers that have been cited over 10000 times, and her publication H-index is 58 (Nov., 2024). Her publications include works on plant physiology, agronomy, transcriptomics, genomics, proteomics and analysis of RNA-seq. She is currently Qiu-Shi Distinguished Professor of Zhejiang University. Prof. Wu has supervised 36 Ph.D. students and 21 M. Phil students (Graduated during 1999.09 – 2023.05) and 17 are under progress.

JOSE EDGAR ZAPATA MONTOYA has completed his PhD at the age of 18 years from Granada University. He is the director of Nutrition and Food Technology Group in Antioquia University. He has published more than 130 papers in reputed journals and than 10 book chapters in reputed editorial house. He has advised more of 10 doctoral theses