Ruoxi Chen
Graduate Student
E-mail: RChen@agcenter.lsu.edu  

Major Professor: Dr. Jong Hyun Ham

Education:

• 2008-Present - PhD Candidate in Plant Pathology (enrolled). Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803

• 2004-2008 - B.S. Plant Protection. Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, Shandong 271018

• 1996-2001 - Shandong Heze No.1 Middle School, Heze, Shandong 274000

Work Experience:

2008-Present - Research Assistant.  Louisiana State University, Department of Plant Pathology

Awards and Recognition:

• 2006 Academic Outstanding Student Prize

• 1^st semester: College third-class scholarship  

• 2^nd semester: College third-class scholarship

• 3^rd semester: College second-class scholarship

• 4^th semester: College first-class scholarship

• 5^th semester: College second-class scholarship

• 6^th semester: College second-class scholarship

Publications:

Isolation of Antagonistic Bacillus B102 Against Brown-Spot Disease of Tobacco and Determination of The Antifugal Activity.  LI  Anna, JIN Ying, LU Peng, ZHENG Yuanyuan, CHEN Ruoxi, DING Aiyun.  Department of Plant Protection, Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, Shandong, P. R. China.  Published in Tobacco Science & Technology, 2008 NO.2, (ISSN 1002-0861) CN41-1137/TS

Extracurricular Activities:

• Active member of Young Volunteers Association; 2004-2005

• Active member of Reading and Debating club; 2004-2005

• Secretary of University student autonomy committee; 2004-2005

• Vice-monitor of silk science class 04-2; 2004-2005

• Attended American Phytopathological Society Meeting. 2010. Charlotte, North Carolina

• Presented at APS Southern Division Meeting. 2011. Corpus Christi, Texas

Current Research:
 

Burkholderia glumae is the major causal agent of an economically important rice disease Bacterial panicle blight (BPB). The known virulent factors of B. glumae, toxoflavin, fagella, lipase and catalase share a LuxI/LuxR-type quorum sensing system as their regulator. tofI and tofR genes encode the N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) synthase for the B. glumae quorum sensing signals, N-octanoyl homoserine lactone (C8-HSL) and N-hexanoyl homoserine lactone (C6-HSL), and the receptor for C8-HSL, respectively. Even though B. glumae produces both C6-HSL and C8-HSL, the function of C6-HSL is still unknown. According to sequence information from the National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI), there are at least six putative LuxR homologs in the entire genome of the B. glumae strain BGR1, but they are not coupled with LuxI homologs. Therefore, C6-HSL may involve in the regulatory network through other LuxR-family proteins other than TofR. In our study, B. glumae genes dependent on different autoinducers and regulators of the B. glumae quorum sensing system were sought using various techniques of molecular genetics and genomics. Though this study, we expect that the quorum-sensing network for regulating the virulence of B. glumae would be better understood.