Max Planck Society has recently approved Jingyuan Chen’s application to set up a new “Max Planck Partner Group” at Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai (BNU Zhuhai). Dr. Jingyuan Chen from China and Prof. Dr. Jonathan Gershenzon from Germany will lead this newly established research group. Max Planck Society will fund this group for a maximum duration of five years.

In 2020, Jingyuan Chen obtained her doctoral degree with excellent performance at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology under Jonathan Gershenzon. After postdoctoral training in the same lab, she was further appointed as an Assistant Professor at BNU Zhuhai.

Jonathan Gershenzon, a leading and well-esteemed scientist in the realm of chemical ecology，focuses on the ecological functions of plant secondary metabolites. Since 1997 Jonathan has been the director of the Department of Biochemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology at Jena, Germany. In 2021, Jonathan was elected as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (short as Leopoldina), the oldest natural science society in the German-speaking region.

Max Planck Society supports fundamental research in the natural and social sciences in its 86 Max Planck Institutes. It has a world-leading reputation as a science and technology research organization, with 37 Nobel Prizes and 2 Fields Medals awarded to their scientists. It is widely regarded as one of the foremost basic research organizations globally. In addition, the society funds a number of Max Planck Partner Groups, which can be set up with an academic institution abroad with the proviso that, following a research residency at a Max Planck Institute, outstanding early career researchers return to their home county and carry out further research on a subject that is also of interest to their previous host Max Planck Institute. The purpose of establishing such research groups at various countries is to strengthen the international networking between the Max Planck Society and other academic institutions from abroad.

The establishment of the Max Planck Partner Group by Dr. Jingyuan Chen will strengthen the academic collaboration and exchange between the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and BNU Zhuhai. We believe this collaboration will bring fruitful outcomes to BNU Zhuhai in the realm of chemical interactions between plants and microbes.