Invited by Prof. Peng Zhang, Prof. Wilhelm Gruissem of ETH Zurich visited SCCB from July 3 to 6, 2012. On July 4, Willi gave a lecture of “Arabidopsis leaf development—a systems biology approach” at the seminar room of SIPPE in the morning. Then, he listened to the progress reports by the SCBB members in the afternoon and expressed his commend for the achievements. In the morning of July 5, he firstly visited the Wushe Plantation for Transgenic Crops and then gave a seminar of “Genetic engineering of cassava and rice for improvement of nutritional quality and disease resistance” at the conference hall of Chenshan Plant Science Research center. After, Willi went on a tour of the center laboratories and whole garden with great interest. He expressed the best wishes and confidence in the further development of the centre. During the visit, Professor Peng Zhang also intensively discussed with Willi on the bilateral cooperation in cassava biotechnology and planed the future research scheme.