From 11-13 May 2009, Dr. YUAN Ling associate professor of the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Kentucky, paid a special visit to South China Botanical Garden (SCBG), under the invitation of SCBG as the oversea partner of SCBG’s Innovational Team of Plant Resources Protection and Sustainable Utilization. During the visit, Yuan presented a wonderful academic report titled “The application of protein engineering in bioenergy production and metabolic pathway regulation”. He also held a talk with graduate students of the Research Field of Sustainable Use of Plant and Gene Resource. All students were impressed deeply by his humorous approach and profound insights.

At present, Dr. Yuan has a very rich research experience in the field of plant molecular biology and biotechnology. And his research interests are focused on protein engineering, directional evolution and metabolic pathway engineering. He has many academic papers published in international journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, Proceedings of National Academy of Science U.S.A. (PNAS), Current Opinion in Biotechnology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and has obtained 12 items of the international monopoly and the American patents.