Zhikai Liang
banner
shanwai1234.bsky.social
Zhikai Liang
@shanwai1234.bsky.social
Assistant professor @NDSU; Computational biologist 🌽🫛🫘🍻❄️🔥☀️🪴🌾 http://zlianglab.github.io
Happy to see my PhD student 𝐅𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐇𝐚𝐬𝐚𝐧 presenting one of his research projects at @ndepscor.bsky.social annual conference just since he officially started 3 months in the lab!
October 21, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
Please share! I'm looking for a postdoc. The position is to lead one of the following projects: 1) regulation of plant specialized metabolism by cell fate, or 2) foliar embryogenesis in the succulent plant Kalanchoe.

Learn more abt projects: cxli233.github.io/cxLi_lab/res...
Plant cells are totipotent, meaning individual cells have the potential to develop into a full organism, a property unique to the zygote for animals. However, in most species for most cells, plant cells are not spontaneously totipotent, since they must be treated with specific hormone combinations to unlock their totipotency. Species within the Kalanchoe genus is unique as they spontaneously develop foliar embryos that are fully realized plantlets with shoot and root from notches along the edges of leaves. We speculate that the progenitor cells that give rise to these foliar embryos are totipotent, and we are using single cell techniques to identify & characterize them. In addition to being a fundamental process for plant biology, we foresee unlocking totipotency has many biotechnological applications, such as faciliating genetic transformation and the development of synthetic organs of biomanufacturing.
cxli233.github.io
September 4, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
What's the difference between dominance and epistasis? Two physically distinct mutations in a gene interact such that the het is identical to one of the homozygotes. If I define the gene as a locus, we call this dominance. If I define each bp as a locus, we call this epistasis.
September 1, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Our lab’s first field harvest at Prosper ND with our amazing folks!
August 30, 2025 at 1:55 AM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
Starting up our 8th year of the Zeavolution webinar series! Want to hear talks on maize genetics, evolution, phylogeny, genomics, etc? All are welcome! Join our slack with >400 people from across the maize community! DM to join the slack, and check out below for schedule or to sign up for a talk!
Zeavolution signup
docs.google.com
August 27, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Amazon shipped a box of diaper to my office …
August 26, 2025 at 8:33 PM
From my limited interviewing experience, when a reference mentions even a minor concern about a candidate, it’s worth paying attention. What may seem small could point to a larger and major issue, and it’s important to decide whether you’ll be comfortable with that.
August 21, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
🎉 Congratulations @shanwai1234.bsky.social and team @ndsuofficial.bsky.social!!
Fascinating work, can’t wait to dive in!
Spatial Coordination between Leaf Gradient and Temperature Response in Barley https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.24.661333v1
June 28, 2025 at 12:01 AM
We finally get our brand new LED growth chamber today and have an alternative to waiting in line for the shared equipment!
June 4, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Shipped out >120 lb packages today
May 13, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Our first field season is kicking off!
April 30, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Preparing 50 trays with 4,800 slots for our first large-scale sampling effort
April 23, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Proud to see my first PhD student, Ced Fernandez, present his first project on heat stress response at the 2025 Maize Genetics Conference just after he joined our lab for 10 months!
March 11, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
The biggest impact I'll ever have as a professor is the people I help train. Felt wonderful to see so many current trainees and lab alumni together in one place this past weekend at the 2025 Maize Genetics conference.
March 11, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Eventually, we have our own lab space today!
February 11, 2025 at 5:52 PM
After intense data collection and exploring research goals, we finally held our first lab meeting in a while. Excited to see where this next phase takes us!
January 24, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Really fun to reunite with my undergraduate classmates at #PAG32
January 12, 2025 at 9:52 PM
The first week of 2025: a new student joined, a postdoc’s visa was approved who will come soon, and our very first lab member, who greatly helped with lab setup as a student worker, will become an alumnus by the end of this month, my first experience of joy mixed with sorrow as a faculty.
January 8, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Growing batches of plants for a new experiment on the Christmas Eve
December 24, 2024 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
I love when a thought assessment of empirical data shows that a simple concept is really really difficult (shocker).

Jim Birchler on what is and is not subfunctionalization. academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...
When is it subfunctionalization and when is it not?
Mutations generate new alleles and gene duplications are required to make new genes. How these two types of events interact can affect evolutionary process
academic.oup.com
December 19, 2024 at 6:28 PM
Thank you @ndsurca.bsky.social for your support and helping us drive innovation!
December 18, 2024 at 3:09 AM
Reposted by Zhikai Liang
Just your regular reminder how awesome this review on inbreeding depression is. www.nature.com/articles/nrg...
The genetics of inbreeding depression - Nature Reviews Genetics
The genetic basis of inbreeding depression and of the related phenomenon, heterosis, has been a puzzle for many decades. Based on recent studies in many species, the authors argue that both phenomena ...
www.nature.com
December 4, 2024 at 9:33 PM
Leaves on a wild barley are much glossier than those on barley cultivars
November 30, 2024 at 3:56 PM