Dr. Xiquan Gao is currently a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement and Utilization, Nanjing Agricultural University. He obtained his master's degree from Nanjing Agricultural University (1995-1998) and PhD degree from Hokkaido University, Japan (2000-2003). He worked at Texas A&M University, USA, as a Postdoctoral and Assistant Research Scientist from 2004 to 2013, before he started his lab at NJAU in 2013. The research interests of his laboratory in NJAU are centered on maize genetics, functional genomics, and germplasm improvement, targeting enhancing maize resistance to diverse pathogens. His research has been funded through multiple grants, including those from NSFC, Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Department of Science and Technology, Jiangsu Province. He has published more than 30 scientific papers in prestigious journals, including Nature Communications, PLoS Pathogens, The Plant Journal, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, and Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions.