An Introduction to the Lab of Molecular Ecology – MPI Partner Group, China Agricultural University (Yahai Lu’s Lab)
The Lab of Molecular Ecology – MPI Partner Group, China Agricultural University (CAU), was co-founded in Sep. 2006 by the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology of Marburg and the Key Laboratory of Plant and Soil Interactions of the Ministry of Education of China (MOE), which is affiliated to the College of Resources and Environmental Sciences at CAU. The faculty of the lab consists of one professor, chair professor, assistant professor and post doctor respectively, besides eight Ph.D. candidates and seven M.S. candidates. Prof. Yahai Lu, the director of the lab and the obtainer of the National Outstanding Youth Funds, was awarded both the title of "New Century Excellent Talents" and “Changjiang Scholar” by the MOE in 2006.
Prof. Lu has worked at Philippines International Rice Research Institute, Japan Science and Technology Agency and MPI for years, where he conducted systematic researches on both biochemistry and microbiology of rice paddy soils. Since 2002, years of cooperative researches have been made between him and Prof. Ralf Conrad from MPI, who together not only developed and established the methodologies for microbial diversity on the interfaces between the rhizosphere and the soil, but also discovered and determined the key microbial groups and their mechanisms wherein, these results have been published in important academic magazines such as Science.
In Sep.2006, the MPI Partner Group was co-founded by MPI and CAU based on the former cooperative foundation and achievements, to continue support and promote the leading edge cooperative researches between MPI and CAU. Prof. Lu was appointed the director of the partner group by Peter Gruss, the president of MPI. In the appointment letter, the president wrote that Dr. Lu’s scientific research has won very high international reputation, the MPI especially the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology of Marburg will support Dr. Lu to develop his partner group in the subsequent five years, he also expected the group to become an active scientific research centre in China and wished Dr. Lu successful researches at his new working place.
In the same period, Prof. Ralf Conrad was appointed the chair professor of CAU by Zhangliang Chen, the president of CAU at that time. Prof. Conrad has been the director of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology of Marburg since 1991, focused on soil microbiology and biogeochemistry. As a prestigious scientist in the world, he has published more than 250 scientific papers and 37 books, during which 35 Ph.D. students graduated from his lab, thus made outstanding academic accomplishments in his professional fields. He also won the lecture award of American Society for Microbiology in 1997 and the Francis E. Clark Distinguished Lecturer for the 2003 Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings, soon after he became a board member for American Geophysical Union in 2005. He is the commissioner of ten international scientific committees such as the European Centre of Environmental Studies, and the former chief editor of FEMS Microbiology Ecology. Prof. Conrad has visited the partner group for once every year since 2006, where he gave us lectures and helped with our researches.
The main topic of the lab is the microbial mechanisms of the environmental processes, which includes:
1. Molecular microbial ecology
2. Microbial diversity and their ecological functions in soil.
3. The microbial mechanisms of the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
4. Microbial remediation.
Our tool box mainly consists of stable isotope probing and molecular biological techniques.
The 211 and 985 projects of MOE have provided us EA-IRMS, Bechman Coulter Ultra-high-speed Centrifuge, ABI 3130 Sequencer, ABI 7900 Real Time PCR, etc. Multiple PCR instruments, DGGE equipment, Gel Imaging System and Ultra-low temperature refrigerator are available as well for conventional molecular analyses.
