Mrs. Mona Locke, wife of the current US Ambassador to China, visited Wuhan Botanical Garden on September 22, at the invitation of Prof. Peng Junhua, vice-director of the Key Lab of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Mrs. Mona Locke visiting the Lab of Plant Applied Genomics ((Image by WBG) 

Mrs. Mona Locke talking to the students of junior high school (Image by WBG) 

Prof. Peng introduces the collaborative research project “Inactivating rust resistance suppressors to unlock multiple defense responses in wheat” of  BREAD (Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development) program jointly funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the project “Discovery of genes conferring resistance to rust diseases and abiotic stresses in wild emmer wheat” supported by Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China. The two sides also exchanges opinions on the research of wheat rust diseases. Ph.D. student Ms. Yan Liang shared her visit and research at Montana State University with Mrs. Mona Locke.

In addition, Mrs. Mona Locke also visited submerged plant area, water lily exhibition area and lotus exhibition area. During the visit, Mrs. Mona Locke talked to a dozen of students from the nearby Zhuodaoquan Junior High School.

Dr. Emily Y. Ashworth, Director of NSF Beijing Office, and Dr. Nancy S. Sung Program Director, East Asia and Pacific Program, Office of International Sciences and Engineering, NSF, accompanied the visit.

Gift exchange between the two sides (Image by WBG)