ZHAO Guopin, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Professor from Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology under CAS, paid a visit to Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of Chinese Academy of Sciences on January 8, 2020. During his visit, he gave an oral presentation to share his research life.

Prof. Zhao developed a strong interest in science when he was in middle school. He was excited to read a report about the double-helix model of DNA in a scientific journal and resolved to choose science as his major in university, and moreover, a whole life’s pursuit.

He realized his dream at Fudan University and continued to study science at Purdue University. When finishing his study abroad, Prof. Zhao devoted to the applied and fundamental study of biology back home.

Prof. Zhao has been working on the structure function relationship and reaction mechanisms of microbial enzymes since his graduate studies. Based on these studies, he is also interested in developing microbial and/or protein engineering technology for industrial application of these enzymes.

He developed molecular genetics manipulation systems for studying rifamycin production in a rare actinomycete, Amycolotopsis mediterranei and has been working on cloning and characterizing genes related to the bacterial global regulation, coordinating the primary and secondary metabolisms.

Prof. Zhao organized the genomic sequencing and annotation project for Leptospira interrogans. By characterizing some key metabolic pathways and functions of some potential pathogenic genes, new insights are emerging for further indepth study of the disease mechanism.

He contributed to the comparative and functional genomic analyses for the pathogenicity of phytopathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris. In particular, employing this model system, the contributions of different genetic variations upon the host specificity phenotype that distinguishing the two different strains of the same species were analyzed in detail.

He organized the consortium responsible for the study of SARS molecular epidemiology and SARS CoV evolution, and successfully analyzed the molecular evolution of the virus employing the accurate and comprehensive data of epidemiology. Meanwhile, aided by the mechanism of viral genomic variation and evolution learned via this study, the animal origin of the pathogen was strongly supported, the molecular markers of the epidemiological phases of the pandemic were assigned and the critical amino acid residues related to the cross host infection of SARS CoV were characterized.