International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, IEAS

Academician

Kang ZHONG

Profile:

Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences in 2020, Professor Kang Zhong is a distinguished Chinese plant physiologist, with major contributions to the study of temperature perception, vernalisation, and floral and organ development in plants. Born in April 1962 in Heyang County, Shaanxi Province, he received his B.S. in 1984 and M.S. in 1988 from Lanzhou University and his Ph.D. in 1993. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Lanzhou University, the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the Department of Biochemistry at Tohoku University, Japan, and held collaborative research and visiting scholar appointments at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Purdue University, USA. He later joined the Institute of Botany, CAS, where he currently serves as Research Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, Party Secretary, and Deputy Director, while also holding a professorship at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017, received the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 2006, and was selected as a national-level candidate of the New Century Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talent Project in 2007. His contributions have been recognised through the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Science and Technology Progress in 2023. He has also served as a Member of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the 13th and 14th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Back to list page →

Professor Zhong’s research has focused on the molecular mechanisms through which plants perceive temperature and regulate flowering and organ development, with particular emphasis on the vernalisation pathway in wheat and cold sensing in rice. By integrating molecular genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology, his research has characterised the molecular network underlying wheat vernalisation responses, including the roles of phosphorylation and glycosylation modifications of vernalisation-related proteins in the regulation of flowering. His work on rice has identified a low-temperature receptor and elucidated how membrane-protein complexes perceive cold signals and initiate downstream signal-transduction pathways. He has also provided evidence that cold tolerance in cultivated rice is associated with molecular genetic variation originating from Chinese wild rice during domestication. In addition, his research has clarified molecular and cellular mechanisms through which strigolactones and sterol hormones regulate rice tiller-bud differentiation and leaf-angle formation. He has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals, including Cell, Nature Communications, PNAS, EMBO Journal, and The Plant Cell. Collectively, these contributions reflect a sustained research programme connecting fundamental studies of plant temperature sensing and development with crop improvement, environmental adaptation, and food security.