Dr. Xiquan Gao is currently a professor at State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University. He obtained his master degree from Nanjing Agricultural University (1995-1998) and PhD degree from Hokkaido University, Japan (2000-2003). He worked in Texas A&M University, USA, as a Postdoctor and Assistant Research Scientist since 2004 to 2013, before he started his own lab in NJAU since 2013. The research interests of his laboratory in NJAU are centered on maize genetics, functional genomics and germiplasm improvement, targeting on enhancing maize resitance to diverse pathogens. His research has been funded by multiple grants, including two from NSFC and one from Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as the Department of Science and Technology, Jiangsu Province. His group has published more than 30 scientific papers in prestigous journals, including Nature Communications, PLoS Pathogens, The Plant Journal, MPMI, Frontiers in Plant Science and Journal of Integrative Plant Biology.