On Feb 6^th, Professor Yuelin Zhang from Sichuang University has visited School of Life Sciences in CUHK to deliver a seminar entitled “Salicylic Acid Biosynthesis and Signaling in Plants”.

Salicylic acid, a plant hormone, is widely used in the preparation of aspirin and many pharmaceutical products. For plants, it serves as a vital component of the plant immune system, enabling plants to defend against pathogens. However, the mechanisms governing its synthesis have long been unclear. In the seminar, Professor Yuelin Zhang has introduced his groundbreaking new discovery of a novel biosynthetic pathway for salicylic acid biosynthesis, which is set to be published in the esteemed Nature journal. Furthermore, his has provided a comprehensive overview of the current understanding of the regulatory pathways of salicylic acid in plant immunity, including an alternative signalling pathway of salicylic acid that modulates plant defence control by his group.