Academic Degrees

PhD: 1987, Australian National University (ANU) MSc: 1981, Academia Sinica (Beijing Institute of Botany) BSc: 1978, Nankai University Academic Appointments

Senior Lecturer, 2000-present, School of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong (UOW) Plant Molecular Biology Unit Co-ordinator, 1999-2006, Commonwealth Smart Foods Key Centre of Teaching and Research at UOW Lecturer, 1995-1999, Department of Biological Sciences, UOW Research Scientist/Senior Research Scientist 1990-1994, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry Postdoctoral Fellow, 1988-1990, Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia Visiting Fellow, 1987-1988, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry and RSBS, ANU Postdoctoral Fellow, 1987-1988, Beijing Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica Adjunct Research Professor, 2003-present, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Science

Mechanism of heavy metal resistance Environmental biotechnology Regulation of plant development Bioinformatics

Wei Zheng, James Scifleet, Xuefei Yu, Tingbo Jiang, Ren Zhang (2013) Function of arsATorf7orf8 of Bacillus sp. CDB3 in arsenic resistance. J Environ Sci DOI: 10.1016/S1001-0742(12)60154-5 Zhang Y, Ming Chang, Jinming Zhou , Liping Bai, Junjie Shan, Cheng Yao, Rong Jiang, Lianhong Guo, Ren Zhang, Jiangbo Wu and Yuan Li (2012) Characterization and Functional Evidence for Ste27 of Streptomyces sp. 139 as a Novel Spermidine/Spermine Acetyltransferase. Biochem J 443: 727-734 Bhat S, Luo X, Xu Z, Liu L, Zhang R (2011) Bacillus sp. CDB3 isolated from cattle dip-sites possesses two ars gene clusters. J Environ Sci 23: 95-101 Sam Abraham, James Chin, Huub JM Brouwers, Bernadette Turner, Ren Zhang and Toni A Chapman (2011) GFP based biosensor to detect and quantify stress responses by DNA degrading colicins. Appl Environ Microbiol 77, 6691-6693 Sameer Tiwari, Ren Zhang, Elizabeth S. Dennis, Ming-Bo Wang (2008) RNA silencing and plant defence against viral and non-viral pathogens. In F Columbus (ed) “RNA Interference Research Progress”, Nova Scientific Publishers, NY, pp 259-279 Cladwell R, Dai Y, Srivastava S, Lin Y-X, Zhang R (2008) Improving neural network promoter prediction by exploiting the lengths of coding and non-coding sequences. In: Y Liu and A. Sun (eds) Studies in Computational Intelligence (SCI) Springer, 116, 211–228 Chopra B, Bhat S, Mikheenko I, Xu Z, Yang Y, Luo X, Chen H, van Zwieten L, Lilley R, Zhang R (2007) The characteristics of rhizosphere microbes and their interaction with plants in arsenic-contaminated soils from cattle dip sites. Science of the Total Environment. 378: 331- 342 Chopra B, Bhat S, Mikheenko I, Xu Z, Yang Y, Luo X, Chen H, van Zwieten L, Lilley R, Zhang R (2007) The characteristics of rhizosphere microbes and their interaction with plants in arsenic-contaminated soils from cattle dip sites. Science of the Total Environment. 378: 331- 342 Burden S, Y.-X. Lin, Zhang R (2005) Improving promoter prediction: A case study using E. coli DNA sequence. Bioinformatics 21: 601-607 Zhang R, Zhang X, Wang J, Letham DS, Mckinney SA, Higgins TJV (1995) The effect of auxin on cytokinin levels and metabolism in transgenic tobacco tissue expressing an ipt gene. Planta. 196 84-94 Walker JC, Zhang R (1990): Relationship of a putative receptor protein kinase from maize to the S-locus glycoproteins of Brassica. Nature 345 743-746