Yangnan Gu is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his BS degree in Bioengineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China and earned a PhD degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and an MS degree in Applied Statistics from Indiana University Bloomington. He undertook postdoctoral training at Duke University/Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he explored the role of a novel nuclear pore complex component in plant immune activation. His Lab currently emphasizes the discovery of novel nuclear membrane proteins and investigating their functional importance in different aspects of plant physiology and cell biology. His group is also interested in exploring the specialization of nuclear transport receptors in mediating nuclear shuttling of signaling cargos across the nuclear envelope under various environmental conditions and its significance in determining distinct stress responses in plant cells. He is the winner of Molecular Plant Rising Stars in Plant Sciences and currently serving as Reviewing Editor for The Plant Cell.