Congratulations to Li Yang for passing the Ph.D. thesis defense!

On March 14th at 11 AM local time (6 PM Beijing time), the thesis defense of doctoral student Li Yang from the joint training program of CAAS Graduate School/Oil Crops Research Institute and Wageningen University was held at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Li Yang’s thesis title is “Genomics-assisted dissection of black rot resistance in Brassica napus”, her work was supervised by Prof. Dr. M. Eric Schranz, Prof. Dr. Shengyi Liu, and Dr. Klaas Bouwmeester. During the defense, Li Yang presented her research on the background and significance, main results and conclusions, and prospects, and then responded to questions raised by the examination committee.

The examination committee was chaired by Prof. Dr. Y. (Yuling) Bai and composed by Prof. Dr.ir. G.H.J. (Gert) Kema, Dr.ir. A.B. (Guusje) Bonnema, Prof. Dr. A.F.J.M. (Guido) van der Ackerveken, and Dr. P. (Pingtao) Ding.

Li Yang’s thesis focused on resistance to black rot, a highly destructive disease caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc), affecting cruciferous crops including Brassica napus. In Li Yang’s PhD work, she identified a novel material with broad-spectrum resistance to Xcc, genetically mapped the locus of the Xcc resistance gene by GWAS and bi-parent population, and primarily tested function of a candidate gene ZRK (pseudokinase) as well as analysis of related phylogenetics. This study provides a valuable resource for improving black rot resistance in Brassica crops in the future.

Finally, the examination committee unanimously passed Li Yang’s doctoral thesis defense and recommended to be awarded a Ph.D. in Science.

Li Yang’s work is supported by the joint training program of CAAS-Graduate School/Oil Crop Research Institute and Wageningen, and her mentors was Professor Shengyi Liu and Prof. Schranz. During her doctoral studies, she published 9 academic papers, including three as the first author/co-author.