The National Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, affiliated to Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU), was founded on the basis of microbiology, a national key discipline initiated by Professor Huakui Chen, a member of Chinese Academy of Science and the founding father of soil microbiology in China. Three strong disciplines of HZAU were integrated to form the Laboratory, namely, molecular biology (a national key discipline), preventive veterinary medicine and fermentation engineering (two provincial key disciplines). With the approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Laboratory was founded in December 2003 and passed inspection in 2006. In five consecutive assessments administered by the Ministry of Science and Technology (in 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2017), our Laboratory ranked “A” among state key laboratories and some key laboratories of outstanding departments in the field of life science.

 The staff of the Laboratory are 59 principal investigators and 6 full-time administrators and technical support engineers, among whom 57 are professors, 2 are associate professors, and 56 are PH.D. supervisors. The Laboratory boasts an Innovation Research Group funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), an Innovation Team supported by the Ministry of Education, five Innovation Research Teams supported by the Ministry of Agriculture in the Program of Outstanding Talents and Innovative Research Teams, and nine Innovation Teams supported by Hubei Province.

 A panel of experts constitutes the research group: one academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, two chief scientists of “973 Program”, six winners of the National Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholars, six winners of the National Natural Science Funds for Excellent Young Scholars, five “Distinguished Professors” and two “Young Scholars” supported by the Cheung Kong Scholars Programme of China, three candidates for National New Century key Talents Project, four young experts with outstanding contributions of provincial and national level, six candidates of National innovation Talent Promotion Plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology, five talents from Outstanding Talents of Agricultural Scientific Research in the Ministry of Agriculture, 15 talents from The Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education, four talents from New Century High-level Talents Project of Hubei Province, six winners of Hubei Provincial Outstanding Youth Fundation. 

Main research fields: microbial photosynthesis and biological nitrogen fixation, crop insecticidal and disease-resistant microorganisms, animal pathogenic microorganisms and agricultural environment microorganisms

Director of the Lab: Prof. Daohong Jiang

Director of the Academic Committee of the Lab: Aademician Huanchun Chen

E-mail: hzaml@mail.hzau.edu.cn

Tel/Fax: 027-87280670