2015年4月23日，中国科学院遗传与发育生物学研究所研究员、博士生导师傅向东教授来访我院，并为现代农业系列讲座进行了学术演讲，同两院师生代表进行深入交流。

    傅向东教授本次的演讲主题为“Beyond the green revolution: new approaches for improving grain yield in rice”。本次演讲中，傅向东教授阐释了Nitrogen fertilization is essential to increase grain yield, whereas it also promotes stem and leaf elongation and makes crop plants more susceptible to lodging. It is well-known that Green Revolution is the introduction of semidwarfism into wheat and rice, which also improves the harvest index by the reduced plant height. However, the semidwarf (sd1) gene also causes the reduction of panicle branching and biomass in rice. Through genetic mapping, we identified a major QTL in rice , qDEP1, which encodes a plant specific G-protein γ-subunit and determines both panicle architecture and nitrogen growth responses. Different DEP1 alleles confer different nitrogen responses, and genetic diversity analysis suggests that DEP1 has been subjected to artificial selection during japonica rice domestication. Interestingly, dep1 plants are not only semidwarf but also have increased nitrogen-use efficiency. The DEP1 protein physically interacts with Gα (RGA1), and Gβ (RGB1) and reduced RGA1 or enhanced RGB1 activity represses nitrogen-mediated growth. Further, DEP1 could physically interact with transcriptional factors and regulate the expression of their down-stream genes.  Modulation of the G-protein signalling thus represents an important strategy to simultaneously improve nitrogen-use efficiency and grain yield over what is currently achievable.

演讲结束后，现场听众围绕演讲主旨与傅向东教授进行了互动与讨论。

     傅向东教授简介：1991年获武汉大学生物系学士学位，1994年获中国科学院武汉植物所硕士学位，1996-1997年英国John Innes Centre访问学者，1998-2001年John Innes Centre攻读博士学位，2001年获浙江大学和John Innes Centre联合培养博士，2001-2005年在John Innes Centre做博士后。2005年入选中国科学院"百人计划"，任植物细胞与染色体工程国家重点实验室副主任。主要研究方向是植物激素调控植物形态建成的分子机理研究，在赤霉素信号转导和水稻高产性状形成的分子调控机制等研究方面做出了原创性工作，在《自然》和《自然?遗传学》等国际重要刊物发表SCI论文30 余篇。2005年获得“国家杰出青年科学基金”，2009年获得国务院“政府特殊津贴”，2010年获得“第十一届中国青年科技奖”，2013年入选科技部“创新人才推进计划中青年科技创新领军人才”， 2014年获全国优秀科技工作者荣誉称号。