This is Dele Raheem. I am a Food Scientist currently at the Arctic Centre (a multi-disciplinary centre) and part of the University of Lapland, Finland, as a visiting researcher.
It is a great opportunity to read various contributions on how these "omics" can make positive impacts in developing countries as exemplified by Message 35 by Wayne Parrott and Message 33 by Sudarsono. As more opportunity to carry out research develops in this area there are bound to be new opportunities. Research in developing countries is often hampered by challenges including funding to get access to the right equipment which retards progress.
A recent article by Varshney and colleagues describes progress made with chickpea. I quote from the abstract: "Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is the second most widely grown legume crop after soybean, accounting for a substantial proportion of human dietary nitrogen intake and playing a crucial role in food security in developing countries. We report the ~738-Mb draft whole genome shotgun sequence of CDC Frontier, a kabuli chickpea variety, which contains an estimated 28,269 genes. Resequencing and analysis of 90 cultivated and wild genotypes from ten countries identifies targets of both breeding-associated genetic sweeps and breeding-associated balancing selection......".
As we continue to rub minds in the scientific world, the application and relevance of these technologies will continue to have positive impacts in ensuring global food security.
Finally, thanks to all the contributors and to our moderator for providing this platform.
Dr. Dele Raheem
Arctic Centre,
University of Lapland
Rovaniemi,
Finland
e-mail: draheem (at) gmail.com
Varshney, R.K., Song, C., Saxena, R.K. et al. 2013. Draft genome sequence of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) provides a resource for trait improvement. Nature Biotechnology 31, 240-246. http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.2491.html
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