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Abstract

Genome is the basic source code of life, connecting nearly all species in this planet during the past billions of years that produced remarkable biodiversity and genetic innovations. To study the role of plants and beyond in ecosystems, medicine & food, big data in phylogenomics is a powerful way to understand biodiversity and evolution through biodiverse sampling and sequencing. In this talk, I will start with the question on how big data in plant genomics can help us to explore the major evolutionary forces that drive (plant) genome evolution and adaptation, in which (gene or genome) duplications and host-microbe symbioses are pronounced here and highlighted. Then, I will focus on why big data in genomics holds a great promise in future agriculture, a recent case study in the genome evolution and diversification of the Nitrogen-Fixing Symbiosis. Finally, I will talk about genomics in medicinal plants that with specialized metabolites emerged evolutionarily and why drugs from plants matter to the future of humankind.

Personal Profile

Dr. Shifeng CHENG joined BGI-Shenzhen since 2008, and completed his PhD in genomics & bioinformatics from The University of Hong Kong. He has been working on plant biodiversity and evolution for ten years taking the advantages of multi-omics technologies and bioinformatics technologies, with a particular interest in comparative evolutionary genomics. He participated in a series of international genomics consortia in the early years when NGS technologies emerged. He also led the genome projects of foxtail millet, Symbiodinium and Cleome, all of these were published in the top-tier journals. In the past a few of years, he focuses on the genome evolution and diversity of root nodule symbiosis, as well as many other "convergent evolution and deep homology" questions in the context of phylogenomics, like pathway discovery for the specialized biochemical metabolites and pathway assembly for various evolutionarily medicinal plants.