Sponsored by

Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences (PKU-IAAS)

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

CIMMYT-PKU-IAAS Joint Research and Training Center

Participants and Eligibility

Molecular Breeding Academy is open for scientists, teachers, graduate students, postdocs, and seed industry personals. The participants should meet the following requirements:

• BS degree plus five-year experience, MS degree plus three-year experience, Ph.D. student, or postdocs, in the field of plant breeding.

• The aspirants should be proficient in the following: sending and receiving emails; finding web resources through search engines; downloading and installing software and/or viewing electronic files; familiarity with using browser plug-ins (e. g. PDF reader, video, audio); and using a word processing, presentation software, or other productivity applications.

• Ability of participating intensive training courses, field trips and tours.

Registration fee

RMB5000 for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty; RMB7500 for industry participants. These fees include breakfasts, lunches, dinners, morning and afternoon breaks, accommodations, field trips and tours to crop farming and marketing.

Scholarships

• Scholarships will be provided for up to ten international students and postdocs from Chinese universities and institutions.

• Awardees will be selected based on qualifications and economic status. Please submit applications with cover letter and CV, along with the registration form.

Lectures/activities and schedule 

Instructors

The courses will be given by instructors from CIMMYT-PKU-IAAS Joint Research and Training Center, including:

• Dr. Yunbi Xu, principal scientist, CIMMYT, China and senior research professor, PKU-IAAS

• Dr. Xingping Zhang, Vice Director and senior research professor, PKU-IAAS

How to Apply

Participants can submit online registration through http://lgzajv4wvjfnebya.mikecrm.com/reRSbTZ with required information (CV, cover letter and required qualifications), and pay the registration fee via bank transfer, bank information as below:

Name：潍坊北千科技服务有限公司

Account No. : 2390030844205000010081

Beneficiary’s Bank：潍坊农村商业银行赵戈支行

Beneficiary’s Bank Code: 402458007064

About Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences (PKU-IAAS)

PKU-IAAS was co-founded by Peking University and Shandong provincial government in 2017, to better serve the needs of rural development and agriculture sustainability in China. The institute takes the advantages of the strong scientific research and educational capabilities of Peking University and close connection with agriculture production and enterprises of Shandong province to become a new international research hub for research and talent development in advanced agriculture sciences (www.pku-iaas.edu.cn). The institute is located at the scenic site of Xiashan Ecological and Economic Development Zone, Weifang, Shandong. A well-designed lake-front campus, along with Shandong Laboratory of Advanced Agricultural Sciences at Weifang under construction, can host 100 labs and 2000 researchers, students and visiting scholars. Equipped with state-of-art lab instruments and high-capacity data management computers and servers, PKU-IAAS will develop as a leading research institute and training center for genetics, agricultural biotechnology, genomics and breeding, agricultural product development, and agricultural policy.

About International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

CIMMYT is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis (www.cimmyt.org/). Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. CIMMYT’s research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture. CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources (www.cgiar.org/).

About CIMMYT-PKU-IAAS Joint Research and Training Center

CIMMYT-PKU-IAAS Joint Research and Training Center was established by PKU-IAAS in collaboration with CIMMYT for advanced agricultural sciences with focus on genomics and crop improvement.

About the Molecular Breeding Academy

Global demand for agriculture products is expected to double by 2050, mainly due to improvement in the worldwide standard of living. Meanwhile, climate change is a threat to agriculture production because of the impact on biodiversity and crop environments. This Molecular Breeding Academy is designed and tailored for seed industry personnel. It provides rare opportunity to develop talents and enable conventional breeding cope up with the challenges of sustainable agricultural production in this Information Age. The Academy is more of being up-to-date with current knowledge and technology-driven breeding methods with the purpose of sustainably improving crop productivity. There is growing interest in understanding genetic, genomic and biotechnological tools and integrative strategies for plant breeding, and it is also motivating a significant amount of research. Within this complex background, this Academy will facilitate and provide professional, skill based and knowledge-oriented trainings to the scientists, teachers and graduate students of agriculture; regarding recent trends in molecular breeding.

Aims & Objectives of Molecular Breeding Academy

• To decipher the basic and molecular, technological advances and know-how on molecular breeding.

• To gain understanding, insights about molecular breeding as a basic tool for crop improvement.

• To gain an insights about genetic advances in disease and pests diagnostics and management.

• To grasp the knowledge of basic techniques for building all molecular techniques, new opportunities to enable plant breeding cope up with the challenges of sustainable crop production in this information age.

• To get inspired from the success journeys of different industrial experts.

• To generate ideas for sustainable crop production by reshaping the future of plant breeding.

Key references

Books

• Xu, Y. 2010. Molecular Plant Breeding. CABI Publisher, Wallingford, UK

• Bernardo, R. 2020. Breeding for Quantitative Traits in Plants. 3rd edition, Stemma Press, Woodbury, MN

Articles

• Gao, C. Genome engineering for crop improvement and future agriculture. Cell 184 (2021) 1621-1635.

• Hickey, L.T., A.N. Hafeez, H. Robinson, S.A. Jackson, S.C.M. Leal-Bertioli, M. Tester, C. Gao, I.D. Godwin, B.J. Hayes, B.B.H. Wulff. Breeding crops to feed 10 billion. Nat. Biotechnol. 37 (2019) 744–754.

• Varshney, R.K., A. Bohra, J. Yu, A. Graner, Q. Zhang, M.E. Sorrells, Designing future crops: Genomics-assisted breeding comes of age, Trends Plant Sci. 26 (2021) 631-649.

• Wallace, J.G., E. Rodgers-Melnick, E.S. Buckler. On the road to breeding 4.0: Unraveling the good, the bad, and the boring of crop quantitative genomics. Ann. Rev. Genet. 52 (2018) 421–444.

• Xu, Y., X. Zhang, H. Li, H. Zheng, J. Zhang, M.S. Olsen, R.K. Varshney, B.M. Prasanna, Q. Qian, Smart breeding driven by big data, artificial intelligence and integrated genomic-enviromic prediction, Mol. Plant 15 (2022) 1664–1695.

• Xu, Y., P. Li, C. Zou, Y. Lu, C. Xie, X. Zhang, B.M. Prasanna, M.S. Olsen, Enhancing genetic gain in the era of molecular breeding. J. Exp. Bot. 68 (2017) 2641–2666.

• Xu, Y., X. Liu, J. Fu, H. Wang, J. Wang, C. Huang, B.M. Prasanna, M.S. Olsen, G. Wang, A. Zhang, Enhancing genetic gain through genomic selection: from livestock to plants. Plant Comm. 1 (2020) 100005.

A poster for the Molecular Breeding Academy 2023 Class can be downloaded by the following link:

https://pan.baidu.com/s/1A7OZmWafZe3lOE49HMJ4ow?pwd=iy54