AWARDEE OF LIFE SCIENCES PRIZE

WANG MINGXIU

Abstract

Professor Wang Mingxiu, born in Wuhan, Hubei Province in 1932, is an expert in forestry and forest genetic improvement.  He graduated from Huazhong Agricultural Institute in 1954 and studied at Graduate School, Forest Technological Institute of Moscow, USSR from 1957 to 1961 during which he got a doctor degree.  Since 1961 Prof. Wang has engaged in the education and research at Nanjing Institute of Forestry ( renamed as Nanjing Forestry University in 1984 ) and served successively as the associate chairman of Department of Forestry, the associate dean and the dean of Nanjing Institute of Forestry.  He was a president of Nanjing Forestry University from 1984 to 1993 and elected as a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering in May of 1994.
Since the early 1970, Prof. Wang and his colleagues became involved in the research on poplar genetic improvement for the aim of forest tree species of short-rotation industrial wood applied to the agricultural area of the plain district along the Huaihe River by means of combination of modern biotechnology and traditional breeding method at the level of molecular, cell, individual and population.  A great progress had been made in the combined improvement of multiple properties such as growth, stem form, wood property, resistance and a serial key problems like germplasm resource, breeding procedure, wood property, early determination of resistance or so had been solved.  A serial new clones have elite combined properties.  This achievement was applied to the area along the Huaihe River and the middle to low district of the Yangzi River and the artificial forest of industrial wood in these areas has multiply increased which have gained a great economic and social benefit.  Thus, Prof. Wang has received numerous national awards for his great contribution to the development of forestry in China.