Dr. John Manners, deputy director of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Plant Industry, Australia, visited IGDB on May 2. Dr. XUE Yongbiao, director of the institute, and Dr. LING Hong-Qing, director of the State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, as well as Dr. TANG Dingzhong, Dr. SHEN Qianhua and Dr. XIE Qi from the institute toke part in the meeting.

Dr. XUE Yongbiao introduced visitors the organization and recently research progress of IGDB. Dr. John Manners and Dr. SHEN Qianhua presented the research activities of plant disease resistance in CSIRO Plant Industry and in IGDB, respectively. Then, the possible collaborations were discussed between CSIRO Plant Industry and IGDB. Both partied hoped to establish a joint gene discovery pipeline for plant disease resistance in cereal crops and maintain the collaboration for a long term strategy.