IGDB has a strong and young scientific community. Among 541 employees, 365 persons are directly involved in research activities. The faculty includes 2 Fellows of CAS and fifty-nine Principal Investigators. Among them, 36 faculty members are the recipients of the CAS Young Talented Award, also known as One Hundred Talent Program, the highest honor in CAS for young starters, and 25 of them have also received the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Award for young investigators, the highest honor for young scientists in the nation. Three research teams in the institute have received the Fund for Creative Research Groups from the NSFC, while other two teams have been supported by the CAS International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams. There are a total of 509 graduate students, and among them 346 students are doing their PhD.
Scientists in the institute use both plant and animal models to address fundamental questions in life sciences, such as genetic control of growth and development, gene expression, signal transduction, structural and functional genomics, biotech and molecular breeding, bioinformatics and systems biology. As China owns the biggest agricultural market in the world, our researchers in the Institute have also made significant efforts on water saving agriculture and agronomic studies, focusing on the improvement of crop productivity and quality as well as bio-safety.
There are five highly interactive centers in the institute: Plant Gene Research, Molecular Agro-biology, Developmental Biology, Molecular Systems Biology and Agro-Resources Research. The institute has four key labs: the State Key Lab of Plant Genomics, the State Key Lab of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, the Key Lab of Molecular and Developmental Biology of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hebei Key Lab of Water-Saving Agriculture. In addition, the National Plant Gene Research Center (Beijing) is affiliated with the institute.
During the last three years, scientists in the institute have received more than 180 major grants from various funding agencies, including those from the national and local government and CAS as well as from international organizations. As a return, scientists of the Institute have published more than 1,200 original research articles and have owned 61 patents and 38 new crop varieties. Academician Zhensheng Li won the Grand Award of Science and Technology of China in 2006 and other two research groups earned the silver prize of National Natural Science Award and the silver prize of National Sci-Tech Progress Award in 2007, respectively.
International cooperation and exchanges are actively pursued in the frontiers of genetics, developmental biology and biotechnology. IGDB has established strong partnerships with institutions, international organizations, universities and companies from many countries around the world through exchanging visits, bilateral seminars, conferences, joint labs and research programs. Many international symposiums were organized by IGDB in the past few years, such as 11th International Congress of Plant Tissue Culture and Biotechnology in 2006. IGDB is a member of Peking University-Yale University-CAS Joint Research Center for Plant Molecular Genetics and Agro-biotech, and established a Joint Laboratory for Life Science with Temasek Life-Sciences Laboratory, Singapore, and a Joint E-Lab for Plant Science with University of Leeds, UK. In 2007, IGDB signed a collaborative agreement of research with Syngenta Company, which is a world-leading agribusinesss enterprise. This collaboration will promote the commercialization of the scientific discoveries and inventions. To further strengthen the innovative pipeline of the institute, seven high-tech breeding centers have been established jointly with local governments, institutions, universities and companies all over China. These centers are focusing on molecular breeding of rice, wheat, cotton and vegetable.
The Genetic Society of China is affiliated to the institute as well as an Editorial Office, which publishes three major journals, Journal of Genetics and Genomics, Hereditas (Beijing) and Chinese Journal of Eco-Agriculture.
Director: Prof. Yongbiao Xue
Address: West Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, P.R. China
Tel: 86-10-64856610
Fax: 86-10-64889338
