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In Loving Memory of Professor Shiping Wang

2019; Elsevier BV; Volume: 12; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.molp.2019.07.004

1674-2052

Meng Yuan,

Plant Disease Resistance and Genetics

We are deeply saddened that our respected colleague Dr. Shiping Wang passed away on May 14, 2019, at the age of 64 after a hard-fought battle with cancer for four years and seven months. Dr. Wang was a professor of plant pathology at Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU), China. She was also a beloved wife, mother, mentor, and friend. We shall miss her dearly. Dr. Wang was born on May 9, 1955, in Wuhan, China. She completed her undergraduate training in 1977 in Huazhong Agricultural College (now HZAU), earned her Master of Philosophy degree in 1986 from The University of Edinburgh, UK, and her PhD degree in 1994 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA. She had been a faculty member of HZAU since 1977 and was promoted to full professor in 1997. Dr. Wang dedicated her career to teaching, from which she derived the fullest enjoyment. She started two new courses, Bioinformatics and Molecular Cell Biology, which she taught for over 16 years, cultivating generations of undergraduate and graduate students. Her teaching not only met with great popularity among students but was also acknowledged and commended at the highest level. Bioinformatics was awarded as one of the National Excellent Courses in 2007 and National Excellent Resource Sharing Courses in 2016 by the Ministry of Education. Dr. Wang also served as deputy director of the National Advisory Committee on Teaching Biology Majors in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, and contributed significantly to educational reform. In recognition of her excellent teaching skills and remarkable educational impact, she was awarded the National Model Teachers in 2009 and National Distinguished Teacher in Higher Education in 2011. Being a scientific researcher, Dr. Wang established her scholarly reputation with her seminal achievements in plant pathology, especially in deciphering rice disease resistance against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), which causes devastating bacterial disease in rice. Of the 11 cloned rice R genes worldwide, five were cloned or characterized by Dr. Wang's lab, namely Xa3/Xa26, Xa4, xa5, xa13, and xa25. In 2006, her lab cloned a recessive R gene, xa13, a new type of R gene encoding a transmembrane protein that also plays an essential role in pollen development. In 2017, her lab cloned a dominant R gene, Xa4, another new type of R gene encoding a cell wall-associated kinase, which not only triggers resistance but also improves multiple agronomic traits. The Xa4 gene has been widely utilized in rice breeding for over 50 years in more than 54 countries. Dr. Wang made significant contributions to our understanding of the mechanism of qualitative and quantitative resistance of rice to pathogens. Her lab also identified and functionally characterized some rice quantitative trait loci (QTLs) against multiple pathogens, and subsequently dissected the underlying molecular action mechanisms. As an example, the identified QTL gene, GH3.8, an auxin-responsive gene encoding an indole-3-acetic acid-amino synthetase, confers resistance to both bacterial and fungal pathogens. Dr. Wang also uncovered the complex interactions between plants and pathogens. She and colleagues revealed a common mechanism by which transcription activator-like effector-carrying bacterial pathogens hijack host plant basal transcription factor for infection, which was verified in several plants and their corresponding bacterial pathogens. Dr. Wang was prolific, being the author of at least 147 scientific papers published in national and international journals. She supervised 35 doctoral theses and 36 master theses, still editing manuscripts and overseeing the students' ongoing research while in hospital. Many of her seminal papers are published in high-impact international journals such as Nature Plants, Molecular Plant, Plant Cell, PNAS, Genes & Development, and Nucleic Acids Research. She also served as editor for Molecular Plant, The Plant Journal, Rice, Frontiers in Plant-Microbe Interactions, Frontiers in Plant Genetics and Genomics, and Science China Life Science, contributing to maintaining the journals’ high standards of scholarship. Owing to her outstanding scientific achievements, Dr. Wang was bestowed the National Excellent Scientific and Technological Workers award in 2010, and the second prize in China's State Natural Science Award in 2013. “He/she who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity.” Dr. Wang's long-lasting impact on teaching and scientific research will inspire us to thrive and prosper. She will always be remembered as a patient mentor, outstanding scientist, superior collaborator, and a loving wife and mother. Together with students, friends and colleagues will hold Dr. Wang in loving memory at http://shiping.ncpgr.cn/memorial/.