Cary, North Carolina – Dr. Shuangxia Jin was selected as the winner of the 2021 Cotton Biotechnology Award. He is a full professor at Huazhong Agricultural University (HZUA). Dr. Jin earned his Ph.D. in 2006 from HZAU and then was a postdoctoral scientist from 2007 to 2012 at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Jin has been working in plant biotechnology for 15 years and his current research involves insects (whitefly/aphid/lygus), cotton/host molecular interaction, and genome editing. Dr. Jin has published more than 60 peer reviewed papers in high impact journals such as Advanced Science, Genome Biology, Nature Communications, Trends in Plant Science, Plant Physiology, and New Phytologist. He is a Senior Editor of Plant Biotechnology Journal (PBJ) and Journal of Cotton Research.
Dr. Jin has made unique and significant contributions to the field of biotechnology in cotton. Dr. Jonathan Wendel, Distinguished Professor at Iowa State University, says this about Dr. Jin: “He is the global leader in cotton transformation technology, having led the development of new genotypes for transformation and regeneration, created the best CRISPR-Cas9 and CRISPR-Cas 12 (12a and 12b) systems for genomic editing, and published methods for revealing unanticipated or undesired (“off-target”) editing.” His research group developed two elite cotton genotypes, YZ-1 and Jin668, with the highest plant regeneration ability and transformation efficiency, increasing the cotton transformation efficiency from 20% in Coker 312 to 90% in YZ-1 and Jin 668.
The Cotton Biotechnology Award
The Cotton Biotechnology Award was endowed by a gift in 2000 from Dr. Norma Trolinder to recognize outstanding contributions in the field of biotechnology and to encourage and recognize education and scientific advancement. The award recognizes a scientist or group of scientists for outstanding biotechnology research in cotton. Nominations are sought and considered by a selection committee comprised of one representative from each of the following groups: USDA-ARS, university, private industry, Cotton Incorporated, and the most recent award recipient.
The Award has been presented on eight previous occasions. The recipient receives a monetary award and a plaque. It is administered by the Agricultural and Environmental Research Department at Cotton Incorporated.
