Upon invitation of the School of Life Sciences of Chongqing University, Academician Mondher Bouzayen and Dr. Julien Pirrello of University of Toulouse are on an academic exchange visit to Chongqing University. On the afternoon of January 9, 2018, Liu Hanlong, vice president of CQU, meets with Academician Mondher Bouzayen in the reception room of No. 1 Teaching Building of Campus A. The two parties go over the history and achievements of the cooperation between the two universities, and have discussion about possible cooperation areas and methods. The two indicate that they will cooperate in high-level research and building of the international joint lab, and jointly enhance the international influence of Chongqing University in this area.

On the morning of January 9, the appointment ceremony of Professor Mondher Bouzayen is held in Meeting Room LB104, Faculty of Sciences, Huxi Campus, Chongqing University. Qiu Rongfu, secretary of the CPC Committee of the School of Life Sciences, presides over the meeting. Li Zhengguo, dean of the School, presents Professor Mondher Bouzayen with the letter of appointment on behalf of Chongqing University. This indicates the official appointment of Mondher Bouzayen as the disciplinary development consultant of the School  of Life Sciences.

After the appointment ceremony, Academician Mondher Bouzayen and Dr. Julien Pirrello respectively deliver an academic report titled “Tran omic reprogramming, hormone signaling and epigenetic regulation underlying fleshy fruit development” and “Ethylene reponse factors: key regulators of ethylene-related ripening process”. Nearly 100 teachers and students from Chongqing University, Yangtze Normal  University and Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences are present to listen to the reports. The teachers and students present bring forward several questions with respect to the research of Academician Mondher Bouzayen and Dr. Julien Pirrello, and the two also discuss and communicate with the teachers and students in an active way. Professor Li Zhengguo presides over the academic report session.

Professor Mondher·Bouzayen is an academician of the European Academy of Sciences, and he also serves as the director of the Joint Lab for Fruit Genome and Biotechnology of the University of Toulouse and National Institute for Agricultural Research, the coordinator of EU of Tomato Genome Program, and the winner of palm leaf medal, the top honor in the scientific community of France in 2011. His main research areas include plant functional genomics and fruit development regulation. Professor Mondher Bouzayen has made a series of breakthrough achievements in research areas such as fruit development and maturity molecule regulation network, and has published more than 120 papers in international mainstream journals such as Nature, Nature Biotechnology, PNAS and The Plant Cell. Those papers have been cited for more than 8,500 times accumulatively. Dr. Julien Pirrello is currently an associate professor of the University of Toulouse and is mainly engaged in research of fruit development and maturity regulation. He has published more than 30 papers in authoritative journals on botany such as Plant Physiology, New Phytologist, and Plant Journal.