www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT) is partnering with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT),
Government of India to establish a Center of Excellence in Genomics (CEG) at
ICRISAT with financial support from DBT, December 2006.

A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed by Dr William Dar, Director General
of ICRISAT, and Dr MK Bhan, Secretary of DBT, were exchanged yesterday at a
function organized at ICRISAT headquarters at Patancheru, India.

Through the MoA the Center of Excellence in Genomics project was launched at
ICRISAT. The project will result in the establishment of the CEG, which will
strengthen the existing molecular breeding facilities at ICRISAT to a high
throughput, cost-effective facility, which can be used for crop improvement
research. The facility, which is expected to be fully operational over the
course of 2007, will also be available for researchers from other
agricultural research institutes.

The CEG will provide:

High-throughput, low-cost, allele detection platforms, to help with
molecular-marker assisted selection and breeding.
Access to large-scale field screening for abiotic stresses, such as drought
and salinity.
Biometrics (agricultural statistics) and bioinformatics support.
Fellowships and training courses for scientists and students from the Indian
institutes in the use of high-throughput methods in breeding and research.
According to Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, the partnership
with DBT will help in improving agricultural productivity using improved
tools cost-effectively. This will help in alleviating the poverty of
smallholder farmers in the dryland areas of India and rest of the developing
world.

Dr Dar added that the CEG will be a model of growth for enhancing
South-South cooperation, since its results will be beneficial for India and
other developing countries where ICRISAT works. The CEG will provide new
technological options, build capacity of scientists and also accelerate crop
improvement by reducing the time required to develop new varieties by half.
According to Dr MK Bhan, Secretary of DBT, the partnership is significant
since it links international research and national research. As a partner,
ICRISAT understands the national goals in India and also has the ability to
share the products of research with other developing countries.

Dr Bhan added that the CEG is also significant since it focuses on molecular
breeding techniques, which have the potential of giving returns soon enough
in terms of improved agricultural productivity.

Plant breeding relies on the ability of the breeder to identify individual
crop plants with superior characteristics for traits of interest. This often
requires taking extensive and complex measurements of crops plants under
specific field conditions. This makes the selection process slow, since the
breeder often has to wait until the plants grow to make the selection.

Molecular marker-assisted selection reduces this selection time, since
selection can be based on DNA analysis of the plants in the lab, without
waiting for each generation to grow in the field.

Cost-effective techniques based on molecular markers have many applications
in plant breeding, and the ability to detect the presence of a gene (or
genes) controlling a particular desired trait has given rise to
marker-assisted selection and marker-assisted breeding. The approach makes
it possible to speed up the selection process and to increase its
efficiency.

For example, a trait may only be observable in a mature plant, but MAS
allows scientists to screen for the trait at the much earlier plantlet or
even seed stage by analyzing its DNA.

[www.cgiar.org]

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