Summary:
Han Jianlin, a Chinese citizen, was born in a village in northwestern China. He received a Bachelor Degree in agricultural science from Gansu Agricultural University (GAU) in China in 1984. From 1984 to 2000, he was a teaching assistant and an associate professor on animal genetics and breeding in the department of animal science at GAU. There, he undertook cytogenetic, biochemical and molecular genetic studies as well as breeding research in indigenous Chinese livestock (camel, yak, cattle, sheep, goat, pig, horse, donkey and chicken). In 2000, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in molecular ecology and ecological genetics from the State Key Laboratory of Arid Agro-Ecology of Lanzhou University in China. He was awarded several scholarships, which gave him opportunities to visit and/or to work in universities or research institutions in around 40 developed and developing countries. He set up the International Yak Information Centre in 1994, now hosted at GAU, and he is the editor of the International Yak Newsletter. He was the main organizer of the International Congresses on Yak held in Lanzhou (1994), Xining (1997), Lhasa (2000) and Chengdu (2004). His research interests are animal husbandry in extreme ecological environments of the high Hindu Kush Himalayan region and the central Asian steppes (yak) as well as in the low central Asian deserts (Bactrian camel). He has authored or co-authored around 140 scientific publications. He joined ILRI in April 2001 to work on the genetic characterization, conservation and improvement of indigenous animal genetic resources in Asia and Africa.