Prof. Dr. Yong-Gu Cho has dedicated 40 years to rice research, beginning with his graduate studies at Seoul National University, where he earned his PhD in 1992. To expand his expertise, he completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University and later served as a Rockefeller Foundation Career Fellow for seven years. He spent 13 years as a scientist at Korea’s Rural Development Administration, where he led advancements in molecular genetics and biotechnology. He was a professor at Chungbuk University (1998-2023) and also served as an adjunct professor at Cornell (2008–2023). Throughout his career, he has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and 50 patents.