National Chung-Hsing University has had a well-recognized excellent track record in the field of important crop, food and agricultural biotechnologies. For example, key regulatory mechanisms in orchid flowering control have been discovered, rice mutants and genes with important agronomical features have been identified by chemical and T-DNA mutagenesis, multiple compounds with health benefits have been isolated in food science research, and crucial defense genes have been investigated in plant resistance to viral infection. All these afore-mentioned results have been published in top journals in plant science and cross-disciplinary journals such as Nature Plants, Nature Communications, Science Advances, PNAS, Plant Journal, Plant Physiology etc. The current proposed project aims to further enhance the synergism among these scientists in strengthening the “Advanced Plant Biotechnology Center” formed in the previous project for the establishment of the new “Advanced Plant and Food Crop Biotechnology Center” to continually promote advanced biotechnology research for economically important ornamental and food crops with the expectation in achieving international leadership in these fields.This new Center is led by the orchid biotechnology expert, MOE Life National Chair Professor Chang-Hsian Yang in coordination with the plant virus resistance mechanism expert Academician Shy-Dong Yeh, rice expert Chair Professor Academician Tuan-Hua Ho, Yu-Shan Scholar Dr. Wilhelm Gruissem, Food Science biotechnologist Chair Professor Gow-Chin Yen, and many excellent young and promising professors and postdoctoral fellows to form the research team.
