One of our School of Biosciences PhD students is first author of a paper published in the prestigious journal Science on 5 Nov 2015. Zongcheng Lin, the lead author, was a PhD student funded jointly by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and the College of Life and Environmental Science (LES), when he carried out these studies. He is now a postdoctoral scientist at the VIB in Ghent.
Zongcheng Lin
One of our School of Biosciences PhD students is first author of a paper published in the prestigious journal Science on 5 Nov 2015. Zongcheng Lin, the lead author, was a PhD student funded jointly by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and the College of Life and Environmental Science (LES), when he carried out these studies. He is now a postdoctoral scientist at the VIB in Ghent.
Working under the supervision of Professor Noni Franklin-Tong and Professor Chris Franklin, during his PhD research studies he achieved one of the long-term goals that has eluded plant scientists working on plant reproduction for decades.
Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, he produced a plant that can reject self pollen, by inserting just two genes. This breakthrough potentially opens up possibilities to breed better plants more easily and cheaply and could contribute in the battle for Food Security as it may provide a new way to produce F1 hybrid crops. This could be a major boost for plant breeders.
Biosciences PhD course information
