Rod A Wing

Biography

Rod Wing earned his PhD in yeast genetics at UC Davis in 1987. He then moved into plant biology, first as a postdoc with Sheila McCormick (USDA-ARS Plant Gene Expression Center) and then with Steve Tanksley (Cornell University). Rod became an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University in 1991 in the Soil & Crop Sciences Department. There his lab constructed the first plant BAC libraries in 1993/4 for sorghum, Arabidopsis and rice. In 1997 he moved his lab to Clemson University and founded the Clemson University Genomics Institute where he was appointed the Coker Endowed Chair of Plant Molecular Genetics. There his lab developed a BAC-based physical map for the rice genome and led the USA effort to sequence rice chromosomes 3 and 10. In 2002 Rod moved to the University of Arizona and founded the Arizona Genomics Institute.

Professor Wing has received numerous appointments and awards including the USDA Secretary’s Honor Award for Superior Service, Group Leader - United States Rice Genome Consortia (2004), the first holder of Bud Antle Endowed Chair of Excellence in Agriculture & Life Science (2005), the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2010), the AXA Endowed Chair for Genome Biology and Evolutionary Genomics (2014-2019). In 2019 he was appointed a Regents Professor at the University of Arizona and we elected as a Foreign Fellow of India’s National Academy of Agricultural Sciences in January 2022.

Wing's pioneering work on the genome biology of rice and other crop plants and their wild relatives has empowered the agricultural community across the globe to address both fundamental and applied research in pursuit of the 10-billion people question: How can we sustainably grow enough nutritious food to feed the world by 2050 without destroying our planet? Wing’s approach to this question is to identify, understand, and harness the majority of natural variation that already exists in cultivated rice and its wild ancestors, and to use that information to create the next generation of green super crops. Since rice is the most important food crop on the planet, his team is developing new crop varieties that are higher yielding and more nutritious while having a smaller environmental footprint.

Degrees

• Ph.D. Genetics
• UC Davis, Davis, California, USA
• Development of the molecular biology of the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica:I. Development of a transformation system and search for autonomously replicating sequences. II. Cloning and sequencing of the alkaline extracellular protease structural gene
• B.A. Biochemistry
• UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
• NA

Awards

• Foreign Fellow
• Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), Spring 2022
• Regents Professor
• University of Arizona, Spring 2019
• Honorary Professor
• Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, Summer 2016
• International DBN (Beijing Da Bei Nong Technology Group) Science & Technology Award
• 9th DBN Science & Technology Awards Program, Beijing, China, Fall 2015
• AXA Chair for Genome Biology & Evolutionary Genomics
• AXA Research Fund, Spring 2014
• USDA Secretary’s Honor Award for Superior Service, Group Leader - United States Rice Genome Consortia
• United States Department of Agriculture, Spring 2004