The Jute Genome

Dr. Liwu Zhang is a full professor at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU), Fuzhou, China, and a Director at Research Lab for Bast Fiber Crops, FAFU. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from College of Plant Science and Technology of Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU). From 2010 to 2012, he has been working as a post-doc in the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement of HZAU. From 2014 to 2015, he was at the Department of Plant Biology, Illinois University of Champaign and Urbana, IL, USA, as a visiting scholar. He has been working in genetics and crop science for more than 20 years. His current research involves in genetics and genomics for bast fiber crop improvement, especially for jute. Currently, he serves as an editor of The Crop Journal (in Chinese), a topic editor of Frontiers in Genetics, and the vice-director of Bast Fiber Academic Association, the Crop Science Society of China.

Prof. Haseena Khan is a UGC professor at the Department ofBiochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Secretary, The Bangladesh Academy of Sciences. She obtained her Ph.D. on Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Sussex under a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1985. She has worked as post-docs at an INRA/CNRS Institute in Toulouse, France, and at IRCM, Montreal, Canada. She has spent a year at the South Asian University, New Delhi, India, as a Visiting Professor. She has been working on jute molecular biology for over 20 years and had been involved with the jute genome initiative from Bangladesh. At present, her interest lies on applications of jute fiber which her lab has genetically modified to produce less lignin, understanding biotic stress tolerance in jute and elucidating the vast myriad of endophytic microorganisms in this fiber crop which have plant growth promotion and biocontrol properties.