The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) announced the winners of the Excellent Doctoral Dissertation 2015 and Excellent Tutor 2015 on October 9. The thesis written by Jiang Yanjuan, a Ph.D graduate of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), was awarded the CAS Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award 2015 and Prof. Yu Diqiu, Jiang Yanjuan’s supervisor, won the title of CAS Excellent Graduate Tutor 2015.

 Jiang Yanjuan’s doctoral dissertation was entitled “Functional analysis of WRKY57 in Arabidopsis” The members of WRKY family have been implicated in the regulation of various response porcesses, including pathogen infection, abiotic stress and plant development. Drought is one of the most serious environmental factors limiting the productivity of crops in agriculture worldwide. However, the mechanism underlying drought tolerance in plant is unclear. WRKY transcription factors have been identified to function in adaptation to abiotic stresses. By screening a pool of WRKY-associated T-DNA insertion mutants, the researcher isolated a gain-of-function mutant, acquired drought tolerance (adt), showing improved drought tolerance. Under drought stress conditions, adt accumulated higher levels of ABA than wild type plants.

 During her graduate studies under the guidance of Prof. Yu Diqiu, Dr. Jiang Yanjuan has published her research in such journals as Plant Cell and Molecular Plant.

The award of CAS Excellent Doctoral Dissertation firstly started in 2004. Its rigorous selection procedures require that the paper’s research achievement is in high level in innovation and other qualities, which is an important indicator to measure the cultivation abilities of the graduate cultivation units of CAS.