Dr. Le Kang, as an internationally recognized scientist in ecological genomics of insects, is a distinguished professor of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also president of Beijing Institutes of Life Science, CAS, president of Hebei University, as well as the dean of Department of Life Sciences of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected vice chairman of the International union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) and chairman of China Union of Life Science Societies in 2019. He successfully resolves the ecological questions of insect adaptation to environmental variation with the model of the migratory locust, a worldwide notorious pest species, by integrating multiple approaches from molecular biology, physiology to genomics. He discovered the pheromone 4-vinylanisole (4VA) that causes locusts to swarm, in a breakthrough that could pave the way for methods to control locust outbreaks. He makes an outstanding accomplishment in disclosing the molecular regulatory mechanisms and epigenetic modulation of locust phase changes, which are very typically phenotypical plasticity in insects. He has authored more than 200 research papers in international peer-review journals, such as Nature, Science, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (USA), and Annual Review of Entomology etc.. His papers were cited over 6000 times and several flagship papers were recommended for reading by F1000. He is ranked the most cited scientists in agriculture and biology by Elsevier (Scopus 2014-2020). The University of Nebraska conferred him upon Honored Doctor Degree of Science in 2009. Dr. Kang was elected to be member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011, international member of National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2021, member of the Developing World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2012, member of the Academia Europaea (AE) in 2020 and academician of International Eurasian of Sciences (IEAS) in 2017. He received several important awards including the prestigious Life Science & Biotechnology Prize, Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation (Hongkong) in 2011, the International Distinguished Scientist Award of the Entomological Society of USA in 2013, Tan’s Achievement Award for Life Sciences and fellow of Entomological Society of America in 2015, the National Prize (Second class) of Natural Sciences in 2017,  Scientific Achievement Prize of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017,and the Silverstein-Simeone Award from the International Society of Chemical Ecology in 2021. 

Address: 

Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences 

1-5 Beichen West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China 

Email: lkang@ioz.ac.cn