Professor Yong-Ling Ruan aims to discover genes and processes that control carbon (C) nutrient and energy allocation between and wthin plant organs for improving yield, resilience and biodiversity.

He aims to:

• Elucidate how sugar metabolism, transport & signalling regulate development & stress responses;
• Identify regulatory genes controlling C nutrient distribution and
• Dissect molecular networks underpinning resource partitioning during evolution & domestication.

He has:

1. Identified bottlenecks limiting C nutrient input into sink organs and established a “Ready-Set- Grow” model for seed and fruit set;
2. Discovered critical roles of sugar metabolic enzymes, their interacting proteins, sugar transporters & plasmodesmata in growth, yield formation & stress responses and
3. Provided evolutionary & functional insights into sugar signalling across cell wall, cytosol & vacuoles.

Prof Ruan has led his team to a sustained success with findings and insights published in top journals such as Plant Cell, Nature Plants, Molecular Plant, Plant Physiology, Plant Journal, New Phytologist, JBC, PNAS & Nature Genetics. He has an h-index of 56 (Google Scholar), 49 (Scopus) or 48 (Web of Science) as in Sept 2024.  

The quality and impact of Prof Ruan's research has been internationally recognized as evidenced by, for example, having written multiple invited articles for world renowned Annual Review of Plant Biology and Trends in Plant Science, ranked first and second, respectively, among 250+ Plant Biology journals.

Prof Ruan has served on ARC College of Experts (2018~2011), and the editorial board of Molecular Plant (2011~ 2024).  He was the director of Australian-China Research Centre for Crop Improvement (2018~2021).

He is currently a guest editor of THE PLANT CELL and senior editor of Journal of Plant Physiology. He has given invited talks worldwide and received several prestigious awards and recognition, such as Peter Goldacre Medal from ASPS, Distingushed Young Scientist Award from NSFC and Chair Professorship from Zhejiang University and Northwest A & F University (NWAFU). He currently holds the prestigious CJ Laureate Proefssorship at NWAFU.