Chinese Academy of Sciences, China (People's Republic)
My name is Cheng Gao. I am a fungal ecologist and PI from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. My current research interest is integrating ecology knowledge with multi-omics tools to engineer microbiome to foster ecosystem functioning. My previous research focused on the biogeography of ectomycorrhizal fungi of Fagaceae, Betulaceae, and Pinaceae trees from tropical, subtropical and temperate forests (New Phytol 2015; 2017). From 2016 to 2020, I worked with prof John Taylor at UC Berkeley to investigate the mycobiome of drought stressed sorghum, by blending fungal community ecology with host transcriptomics and rhizosphere metagenomics (Nat Commun 2020; PNAS 2019; ISMEJ 2018).