Prof. Alexey Smirnov from St. Petersburg State University visited the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on June 13, 2026 . (Credit: IHB)

Prof. Alexey Smirnov from St. Petersburg State University visited the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on June 13, 2026 for academic exchanges and discussions on future collaboration in protist research.

Smirnov, who heads the Laboratory of Protistology and Experimental Zoology at St. Petersburg State University, delivered a morning lecture titled "Amoebozoa: Diversity and Its Detection in the Environment." His talk covered current challenges in amoebozoan taxonomy and highlighted recent work combining eDNA analysis with culturing techniques to assess species diversity in urban park ecosystems. The presentation sparked a lively question-and-answer session with IHB researchers and graduate students.

In the afternoon, IHB Director MIAO Wei hosted a bilateral symposium focused on deepening Sino-Russian cooperation in protist genomics. Dr. Elisei Mezentsev, also from Smirnov's group, presented a talk titled "Biodiversity and Phylogeny of Amoebae of the Order Thecamoebida." IHB researchers shared updates from their ongoing projects: Prof. XIONG Jie on the Protist 10,000 Genomes Project, Associate Prof. JIANG Chuanqi on the genomic and proteomic basis of contractile stalks in peritrich ciliates with a talk titled "Genomic and Proteomic Insights into the Contractile Stalk of Peritrich Ciliates," and Prof. GONG Yingchun on the history of IHB-Russian collaboration and recent findings on algivorous amoebae. The two sides agreed on a joint research plan, focusing on genomic approaches to amoebozoan evolution and ecology.

Smirnov has studied amoebae for over three decades and has published more than 100 papers and book chapters on their diversity, ecology, systematics, and phylogeny. His current research addresses the origins of Amoebozoa, the distribution of amoebae in highly urbanized environments, phylogenomics of the group, and the genetic structure of morphologically defined species.

In the afternoon, IHB Director MIAO Wei hosted a bilateral symposium focused on deepening Sino-Russian cooperation in protist genomics. (Credit: IHB)