Current
CURRENT
Principal Investigators:
Ping He
Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
pinghemi@umich.edu
MCDB faculty link
China Agricultural University, China B.S. 1993
Chinese Academy of sciences, China M.S. 1998
Kansas State University Ph.D. 2003
Harvard Medical School, Boston Postdoc.2003-2008
Joined University of Michigan in 2023
Libo Shan
Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
liboshan@umich.edu
MCDB faculty link
Beijing Normal University, China B.S. 1995
Chinese Academy of sciences, China M.S. 1998
Kansas State University Ph.D. 2003
Harvard Medical School, Boston Res. Fellow 2003-2008
Joined University of Michigan in 2023
Postdoctoral fellows:
Zunyong Liu
Email: zunyliu@umich.edu
Zunyong Liu got his Ph.D in Zhejiang University in 2017 and joined the lab in Spring of 2018 as a post-doctoral researcher. His primary research interest is to elucidate the function of Fusarium effectors during Fusarium-cotton interaction.
Junhyeok Kim
Email: jhkimrs@umich.edu
Junhyeok Kim is from Gyeongju, South Korea. He got his Bachelors, M.S and Ph.D at Korea University. During his Ph.D he studied how plant transcription factors regulate abiotic stress signaling pathway. After finishing his Ph.D. he joined Alex Webb group in Cambridge University as a post-doc to study NAD signaling in circadian clock and abiotic stress. He joined the lab on November 2018 as a poct-doc to work on ADP-ribosylation in plant immunity.
Yan Yan
Email: umyyan@umich.edu
Yan Yan got his Ph.D in University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016 and spent three years in UC-Davis as a postdoc working on the long-distance signaling transduction in plant. Then he joined our lab in Dec. 2019 as a post-doc research associate. Now, his primary research interest is to illustrate post-transcriptional regulations in plant immunity responses in Arabidopsis.
Fausto Andrés Ortiz-Morea
Email: fauortiz@umich.edu
Dr. Fausto Andrés Ortiz-Morea received a doctorate in plant genetics, biochemistry, and biotechnology jointly supervised by the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and Ghent University (Belgium) in 2015. He is a researcher from Universidad de la Amazonia in Colombia that has received funding from the Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences to do research in conjunction with Texas A&M AgriLife Research. His study will include investigating how plants integrate and execute an immune response against invading pathogens. He will also explore how plants manage to launch a two-tiered immune response when components from each of the separate pathways interact with a common set of receptors. This work could generate significant excitement in understanding the convergent immune signaling against infections in plants and animals.
Incheol Yeo
Email: icyeo@umich.edu
Incheol is from South Korea and he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chung-Ang University in Korea. During his M.S. course, he studied the interspecies interaction of antibiotic-producing microorganisms with pathogens. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Texas A&M University where he studied with Dr. Timothy Devarenne working on phytohormone-regulated host plant defense against a bacterial pathogen. He joined the lab in June 2020 as a post-doc. He works on understanding mechanisms of activation for a resistance protein inducing cell death and proteomics of plant immunity proteins.
Sung-Il Kim
Email: sungil@umich.edu
Sung-Il Kim is from Dae-Gu in South Korea. He got a B.S at Kyung Hee university then got M.S and Ph.D at Seoul National University. He joined here in Sep 2021 to understand how plants control RNA alternative splicing in response to biotic stress.
Yingpeng Xie
Email: ypxie@umich.edu
Yingpeng is from Shandong, China. He got his PhD at City University of Hong Kong. During his PhD training, he studied how bacteria infect host plants and cause diseases. He joined the lab as a post-doc on Sep in 2021. His research interest is to illustrate the roles of phytocytokines in regulating plant Immunity.
Brendan Mormile
Email: mormileb@umich.edu
Brendan joined the lab in the Spring of 2018. Currently, he is developing a virus vector-based delivery system for the components of CRISPR/Cas9. Brendan ultimately plans to use this novel gene editing technique to produce genetically modified cotton plants independent of tissue culture regeneration. Prior to coming to Texas A&M, he completed a B.S in biology from Merrimack College and a M.S in biology from Southern Connecticut State University.
Guangchao Liu
Email: gcliu@umich.edu
Guangchao received his Bachelor degree from Nanjing Agricultural University in 2016 and his Ph.D degree from Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2022. During his doctoral training, he studied the effects of protein ubiquitination on plant abiotic stress responses. In August 2022, he joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow to investigate the role of calcium signaling in pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) responses and RNA binding proteins in plant autoimmunity.
Yunqing Jian
Email: yqjian@umich.edu
Yunqing Jian is from Sichuan, China. She received her Ph.D at Zhejiang University in 2020, and had a two-year postdoc experience there. During her Ph.D training, she studied the mechanisms of how fungi combat with plant-derived stresses. She joined our lab in August, 2022 as a post-doc, and her research mainly focused on evolutionary perspective of RLKs and their ligands.
Graduate Students:
Suji Ye
Email: sujiye@umich.edu
Suji joined the lab in Fall 2020 as a Ph.D student. She received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Kyungpook National University in South Korea. During Master’s course, she studied metabolic engineering in food biotechnology. She works on understanding mechanism of plant cell death and signaling protein.
Rachel Rivero
Email: rrivero@umich.edu
Rachel is from Austin, TX and joined the lab in Spring 2021 as a PhD student. Her work is focused on exploring the bio-production potentials and elucidating the asexual reproduction process of Kalanchoe daigremontiana. She received a B.S. in Resource & Environmental Studies at Texas State University in 2017. Apart from her research, she enjoys spending time with her cat.
Jane Champagne
Email: jchamp@umich.edu
Jane is a current masters student with the University of Michigan. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology with a focus in MCDB from Beloit College in 2022. At Beloit she received the J. Carl Welty honors award for her work rewriting the curriculum for the course BIOL 215 Emerging Diseases. The curriculum now includes details from the pandemic and has been updated to accurately inform students of the scientific advances made in disease research after the discovery of Covid-19.
Staff:
Daisha Griffin
Undergraduates:
Kimi Liu (Tiancheng Liu)
Saarim lqbal
Corinna Chen