职称：教授(校聘)/Professor
职务：
邮箱：taikuizhang@hotmail.com
电话：
Zhang, Taikui
(Pronounced: zhahng, tie-kway)
Prof. Taikui Zhang is a scientist specializing in evolutionary genomics. He received his PhD from Nanjing Forestry University under Profs. Zhaohe Yuan and Yanming Fang. His doctoral dissertation work sequenced the pomegranate genome and emphasized that pomegranate and other Myrtales shared a whole genome duplation event. After his PhD he joined the Prof. Ji Qi's lab at Fudan University as a postdoctoral fellow and collaborated with Prof. Hong Ma, constructing the phylogenomic landscape of whole genome duplations in Asterids, one of two major plant groups of eudicots. He later worked as a postdoctoral scientist at the Pennsylvania State University, in Prof. Hong Ma’s lab, where he focused on grass genomics and phylogenomics. Using bioinformatic approaches, he identified gene duplicates derived from whole genome duplations in grasses and investigated how genome evolution contributes to grass diversity. He also uncovered whole genome duplation patterns across angiosperms, particularly the progenitors involved in the polyploid formation of Malus. He has joined the faculty at Nanjing Forestry University as a Professor of Plant Biology. His current research focuses on the evolutionary genomics of grasses and other flowering plants. His lab also aims to develop bioinformatics tools for (pan-)genomics and phylogenomics, guided by evolutionary principles and informed by tree-of-life perspectives.
He has published several influential papers in plant genomics and phylogenomics in leading journals, including Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, Plant Biotechnology Journal, and others. His recent study on whole genome duplations in grasses, published in Nature Communications, has advanced our understanding of grass genome evolution and provided valuable insights into whole genome duplations across angiosperms, receiving over 22 citations within its first year. His earlier work on whole genome duplations in Asterids, published as the cover article in Molecular Biology and Evolution, receives 20~30+ citations annually and has become a key reference in Asteridae (and eudicots) phylogenomics. His research on the pomegranate genome, published as the cover paper in Plant Biotechnology Journal, was recognized as one of the top 10 most-cited PBJ papers of 2019.
Activities in the plant genomics community.
Editorial roles: Communications Biology (Editor), BMC Genomics (Editor), The Innovation Life(Youth Editor), Journal of Systematics and Evolution (Junior Editor), and Plant Diversity (Junior Editor).
Member of several professional societies: the Botanical Society of China (BSC), the Botanical Society of America (BSA), the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE).
We welcome highly motivated individuals to join our lab at various stages of their academic journey—whether as an undergraduate early-bird, PhD student, or postdoctoral fellow. If you’re interested, please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information!
Email: taikuizhang@hotmail.com
Address: 159 Longpan Rd., Nanjing, Jiangsu 210037, China
Selected Publications in Reverse Chronological Order
(# Co-first author, * Corresponding author. More publications can be found in https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0309-161X)
Pan-genome and Evolution in Malus
Li W (#), Chu C (#,*), Zhang T (#), Sun H (#),Wang S (#),Liu Z (#),Wang Z, Li H, Li Y, Zhang X, Geng Z, Wang Y, Li Y, Zhang H, Fan W, Wang Y, Xu X, Cheng L, Zhang D, Xiong Y, Li H, Zhou B, Guan Q (*), Deng CH (*), Han Y (*), Ma H (*), Han Z (*). Pan-genome analysis reveals evolution and diversity of Malus. Nature Genetics, 2025. (recommended by ‘Research Briefing’) [Links to Article, Research Briefing, and News]
Whole Genome Duplations in Poaceae
Zhang T, Huang W, Zhang L, Li D-Z, Qi J (*), Ma H (*). Phylogenomic profiles of whole-genome duplications in Poaceae and landscape of differential duplicate retention and losses among major Poaceae lineages. Nature Communications, 2024. (hitting 22+ citations in the first year) [Links to Article, Blog, and News]
Angiosperm Phylogeny and Evolution
Xiang Y(#), Zhang T(#), Zhao Y (#), Dong H, Chen H, Hu Y, Huang C-H, Xiang J (*), Ma H (*). Angiosperm-wide analysis of fruit and ovary evolution aided by a new nuclear phylogeny supports association of the same ovary type with both dry and fleshy fruits. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 2024. [Links to Article and News]
Bioinformatics
Chen D (#), Zhang T (#), Chen Y, Ma H, Qi J (*). Tree2GD: a phylogenomic method to detect large-scale gene duplication events. Bioinformatics, 2022. [Links to Article and GitHub]
Asterids Phylogeny and Evolution
Zhang C (#), Zhang T (#), Luebert F (#), Xiang Y, Huang C-H, Hu Y, Rees M, Frohlich MW, Qi J (*), Weigend M (*), Ma H (*). Asterid phylogenomics/phylotranscriptomics uncover morphological evolutionary histories and support phylogenetic placement for numerous whole genome duplications. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2020. (Cover Paper; hitting 20~30+ citations annually) [Links to Article and News]
Gene Evolution
Zhang T, Liu C, Huang X, Zhang H (*), Yuan Z (*). Land-plant phylogenomic and pomegranate transcriptomic analyses reveal an evolutionary scenario of CYP75 genes subsequent to whole genome duplications. Journal of Plant Biology, 2019. [Article link]
Pomegranate Genome and Evolution
Yuan Z (#,*), Fang Y (#,*), Zhang T (#), Fei Z (#), Han F (#), Liu C, Liu M, Xiao W, Zhang W, Wu S, Zhang M, Ju Y, Xu H, Dai H, Liu Y, Chen Y, Wang L, Zhou J, Guan D, Yan M, Xia Y, Huang X, Liu D, Wei H, Zheng H (*). The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) genome provides insights into fruit quality and ovule developmental biology. Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2018. (Cover Paper; one of the top-10 highest-cited PBJ papers of 2019) [Links to Article and News]
Selected Oral Presentations
JSE 2025 (Guangzhou, China): Zhang T. Whole-genome duplications in Poaceae.
Botany 2025 (Palm Springs, CA, USA): Zhang T, Li W, Hong M. Phylogenomic and pan-genome evidence for hybridization in angiosperms.
Botany 2025 (Palm Springs, CA, USA): Zhang T, Hong M. Phylogenomic profiles of whole-genome duplications in Poaceae and landscape of differential duplicate retention and losses among major Poaceae lineages.
Botany 2023 (Boise, Idaho, USA): Zhang T, Qi J. Hong M. Phylogenomic and phylotranscriptomic analyses of whole genome duplications in large angiosperm groups and families with implication on functional evolution.