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Lin Hongxuan was born in November 1960 in Haikou, Hainan Province. He graduated from the South China Agriculture University, China and obtained a bachelor of science (B. S.) degree in Crop Genetics and Breeding in 1983. He obtained his masters degree and Ph.D. degree in 1986 and 1994, respectively， in Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Since 2001, he has been working as a professor in Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009.
The research group led by professor Lin focused on genetic analysis and functional characterization of genes (or QTLs) underlying important agronomic traits such as yield and abiotic stress tolerance in rice. The main aim of their study is to understand the molecular genetic mechanisms controlling important agronomic traits in crops, and to provide valuable genetic information for molecular breeding of crops. Professor Lin has made important achievements and he has published paper in several famous journals, such as Nature Genetics, Nature Cell Biology, Genes & Development, and many others. Professor Lin’s major scientific contributions are as follows:
During the last 10 years, Lin’s group has mainly worked on mapbased cloning of QTLs (quantitative trait loci) associated with important complex traits such as stress tolerance and yield in rice and elucidation of the molecular genetic mechanisms of these traits. His studies resulted in 2 important outcomes.
1．Lin’s group focused on the cloning of the QTLs or genes associated with abiotic stress tolerance in rice and studied the molecular genetic mechanisms underlying these traits. From these 11 QTLs for salt tolerance, they selected a major QTL, namely, SKC1 (Shoot K+ Concentration-1); next, they isolated and characterized SKC1 and found that it encodes a new member of the extended family of highaffinity K+ transporter (HKT)type transporters, and indicated that SKC1 is involved in regulating longdistance K+/Na+ transport, thereby maintaining K+/Na+ homeostasis under salt stress (Ren et al., Nat Genet, 2005). Lin’s group identified a new gene, namely, DST, controlling drought and salt tolerance in rice, and found that DST, a previously unknown zinc finger protein, regulates drought and salt tolerance in rice via stomatal aperture control (Huang et al., Genes & Dev, 2009). In addition, they functionally characterized the gene for salt tolerance, namely, OsHAL3 (halotolerance-3), and showed that a new function of HAL3, which may be involved in lightmodulated plant growth (Sun et al., Nat Cell Biol, 2009).
2． Lin’s group focused on the isolation of the QTLs or genes associated with yield traits in rice and studied the molecular genetic mechanisms underlying these traits. They isolated GW2, a newly identified QTL controlling rice grain width and weight (an important component of grain yield) and showed that GW2 encoded a novel RINGtype protein with E3ubiquitin ligase activity; the results suggested that GW2 may be a novel negative regulator of cell division (Song et al., Nat Genet, 2007). They isolated the PROG1 gene that controls plant architecture in wild rice, including features such as prostrate growth (a wider tiller angle) and many tillers, and elucidated the genetic mechanism of rice plant architecture domestication (Jin et al., Nat Genet, 2008).
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