Dr Zhongyan Wang, the Chairman of Yanoon BioTech, is an internationally renowned kiwifruit expert, and has been working on kiwifruit research and commercial development for nearly 30 years.

From December 1986 to August 1987, he was dispatched to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) of New Zealand as a visiting scholar by the State Science and Technology Commission of China to study kiwifruit in New Zealand. He was one of the youngest scholars dispatched to overseas by Chinese government in those years. His monograph “Kiwifruit in New Zealand, a visiting scholar’s report” introduced for the first time to China comprehensive information on kiwifruit research and the kiwifruit industry in New Zealand.

From May 1989 to November 1993, he undertook postgraduate study in the University of Aucklandand gained PhD degree in plant science, under the sponsorship and financial support of The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Limited (HortResearch). He investigated systematically the effects of different rootstocks on flower bud differentiation in kiwifruit and the underlying physiological mechanisms. From October 1996 to June 1998, Dr Wang worked in HortResearch on molecular biology and genetic engineering of polygalacturonase (PG) genes in kiwifruit.

Dr Wang has been actively engaged in research and commercial development of kiwifruit in China. He has organized systematic research on kiwifruit varietal improvement, aiming to breed new cultivars with high fruit quality and good adaptability to hot summer, a characteristic climatic condition in most kiwifruit growing regions in China. A series of new kiwifruit cultivars have been released and continuous upgrading of kiwifruit cultivars achieved. Meanwhile, his team has carried out persistent research on the domestication of Akebie trifoliata, a native wild fruit in China, and has achieved tremendous breakthroughs. Now, the new fruit has been brought into commercialization under the trade name “Joyfruit”.

Dr Wang is well renowned internationally in the field of kiwifruit. He was one of the key sponsors and organizers for the first Chinanational kiwifruit symposium which was held in Hunan in 2004. He was a member of the scientific committee of the 6th and 7th international symposium on kiwifruit, which were held in New Zealand in 2006 and in Italy in 2010 respectively.