24 June, Professor Zhang Hong， at the invitation of the College of Agronomy, presented an academic report named “Creating drought, heat, and salt tolerant cotton through biotechnology”to the undergraduates, the postgraduates and the faculty from the College of Agronomy and the College of Life Sciences.

Professor Zhang elaborated around drought resistance, heat resistance, saline-alkaline tolerance of cotton by combining with his research work at his own lab. The lecture was aimed at Gene function analysis and verification of AtNHX1, IPT, OsSIZ1. Professor Zhang also had a free discussion on the issues of the concentration monitoring of ion in plant root, the formation and utilization of genophore, crop tolerance of excessive soil moisture, study-abroad and so on, which teachers and students concern about.

During the visit, Professor Zhang Hong and Professor Zhang Jinfa , from the State University of New Mexico, had a talk with the faculty and students from the research groups of cotton breeding and Soybean breeding of AUH.

Professor Zhang Hong, from Biology College of Texas Tech University USA, has been working on Molecular Biology of Plants and Plant Genetic Engineering, mainly aimed at the research of drought-resisting, heat-resisting, and salt tolerant gene and transgenosis. She is now a committee member of many project appraisal committees, such as NSFC, NSF and USDA. She is also an editor and referee of many important international academic journals. She has published nearly 50 research papers on journals such as Science, Plant Cell, which have been cited over 1000 times by others, 321 is the maximum been-cited-number.. She possesses 2 authorized patents and she has made 32 presentations at the important international academic forums, with the publication of 28 important papers.