Xiaofeng Wang - China

What I Did

I requested and was granted a GFPI to visit Dr. Sanji Gao at Fujian Agriculture & Forestry University (FAFU) to start a new collaboration on a project concerning virus-host interactions. Dr. Gao is currently a professor and has been working on virus-host interactions of sugarcane viruses. Because sugarcane is difficult to work with, he has determined to work on model plant Nicotiana benthamiana and seek my collaboration. The goals of my visit are to start a collaboration with him and to discuss with Dean of College of Plant Protection, Dr. Taiyun Wei, and Director of Office of Educational Administration, Dr. Zujian Wu, to attract more students to come to VT. Given the fact that all three are plant virologists, I believe we have a good resource at FAFU to attract more students.

I was at FAFU from 06/4 to 06/08. I attended thesis defense seminars of multiple Master students on 06/05, discussed collaboration project with Dr. Gao in the morning of 06/06 and gave a talk in the afternoon. I discussed with Drs. Wu and Wei about attracting more students with China Scholarship Council (CSC) scholarship to join CALS, VT. The College of Plant Protection has an Advanced Innovation Class, which is similar to Honor College at VT. Numerous undergraduate students from this class have moved on to study in foreign countries with scholarship support from Chinese government. They have agreed to highlight CALS, VT in the class.

I also visited Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences from 06/01 to 06/03. I gave a talk on protein, lipid, and membranes interactions in positive-strand RNA virus genome replication. I also participated discussions with Drs. Yong-Hui Zheng and Chenjun Li as well as their groups.

I visited China Agricultural University 06/15 to 06/17. I discussed collaborative projects with my long-term collaborator, Dr. Dawei Li on 06/16. One of his students, Xin Zhang, just got a 2-year scholarship support from CSC to work in my lab on possible roles of host genes in viral replication. On 06/17, I discussed with Dean of College of Agronomy, Dr. Weiwei Jin, on attracting undergraduate students to CALS, VT. 

Short-term accomplishments and long-term goals

The short-term goal of my visit is to formally start a collaboration with Dr. Sanji Gao and long-term goals are to attract top graduate students from agricultural universities in China and to develop long-term collaborations with plant virologists in China to tackle some important issues related to virus effects on agricultural production.