Nian Wang – UF Innovate

University of Florida Announces the 2025 National Academy of Inventors Senior Members

sooyoungryu — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Nian Wang, J. R. (Rip) Graves Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), and Piyush Jain, Exxon Mobil Gator Alumni Faculty Endowed Professor, associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and co-founder of UF Innovate | Accelerate client company CasNx, have been named Senior Members of the National Academy of Inventors, the organization announced.

They are part of the 162 emerging academic inventors identified by National Academy of Inventors member institutions and welcomed to their 2025 class of Senior Members. This year’s class of Senior Members is the largest to date and come from 64 National Academy of Inventors member institutions across the nation.

New Context for Understanding Citrus Greening Renews Commitment to Finding a Viable Solution

Sara Dagen — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes in science, a new perspective brings an “a ha!” moment. That’s what one senior researcher at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences believes happened with his latest research on Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening.

HLB is a worldwide, devastating citrus disease caused by Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), a bacterium that settles into the tree’s phloem — its interior vascular system — eventually killing the tree. Since first found in Florida in 2005, it has infected virtually every grove in Florida and cost the citrus industry billions of dollars.

UF/IFAS’ Nian Wang’s most recent research describes in detail how HLB causes damage to citrus trees and presents the case that HLB is a pathogen-triggered immune disease. A pathogen-triggered immune disease is a disease that results from the activation of an organism’s immune cells fighting a pathogen (a virus, bacteria, or parasite) that invades an organism, in this case, the citrus plant.

Learn more about New Context for Understanding Citrus Greening Renews Commitment to Finding a Viable Solution

Research Provides Insights Into Citrus Greening Disease

Sara Dagen — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Citrus greening disease, also known as Huanglongbing (HLB), is devastating to the citrus industry, causing unprecedented amounts of damage worldwide. There is no known cure. Since the disease’s introduction to the United States in the early 2000s, research efforts have increased exponentially. However, there is still a lack of information about the molecular mechanism behind the disease.

“Getting into the molecular details behind what contributes to citrus greening symptom development and disease progression is key to finding sustainable solutions to combat the pathogen,” explained plant pathologist Wenbo Ma, a UF researcher. “We bring the community one step closer to understanding these mechanisms with our research.”

UF/IFAS Scientist to Work with Team Developing New Greening-Tolerant Citrus

Sara Dagen — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

When Nian Wang pieces together sequences of genes, he hopes to make citrus varieties that are more tolerant to the deadly disease known as greening, which has devastated a multibillion dollar-a-year industry in Florida.

Wang, a professor of microbiology and cell science with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, will help an investigation in which researchers take the best genes from one plant and transfer them into another. With that combination, Wang and the research team believe they’ll move closer to growers’ goal of citrus that copes better with greening.

Scientists from the University of California-Davis are leading the $4 million project, which is being funded by the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an arm of the USDA. Wang is one of several investigators on the project.

Learn more about UF/IFAS Scientist to Work with Team Developing New Greening-Tolerant Citrus.