Dr. Yongwei Cao , Monsanto Fellow

Yongwei is currently leading the global bioinformatics application development effort, responsible for developing Nextgen sequencing and data mining tools.　 

Yongwei holds a BS degree in Botany from Fudan University and a Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology from University of California, San Diego. His PhD research was completed in the laboratory of Nigel Crawford and Julian Schroeder, and focused on molecular characterization of potassium transporters and channels in plants. Yongwei also completed postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Henry Lester at California Institute of Technology where he worked to characterize the structure-function relationships of neurotransmitter transporters.

Yongwei joined Monsanto in 1998 and since has held various positions in the field of genomics and bioinformatics, including sequencing informatics lead, microarray platform lead, applied bioinformatics lead, and most recently, director of genomics at Monsanto China Research Center.