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Moderated conference on Genomics in Food and Agriculture

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Biotech-Mod3 <[log in to unmask]>
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Biotech-Mod3 <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:04:46 +0100
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This is Rajeev Varshney (again), working for two CGIAR organizations, namely the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, www.icrisat.org) and the Generation Challenge Programme (www.generationcp.org) and I sent Message 28.  

I agree with Raul Castillo (Message 41) and support genomics research and genomics-assisted breeding for less-studied (many times called 'orphan crops') but locally important crops. But the good news is that the power of genomics technologies and collaboration can transform any so-called 'orphan crop' to 'genomics resources rich crop'. ICRISAT and its partner institute have demonstrated this in several cases. For instance, pigeonpea (Nature Biotechnology 
30, 83-89; http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v30/n1/full/nbt.2022.html) and chickpea (Nature Biotechnology 31, 240-46. http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.2491.html) are examples where we had only a handful of markers and few (or no) genetic map until recently but now got the draft genome sequences and molecular breeding efforts have also been initiated. Dele Raheem, in Message 36, has emphasized such efforts in the case of chickpea.

As Raul Castillo mentioned two points, I think that international collaborations (with like minded organizations/scientists) with organizations like BGI (http://www.genomics.cn/en/) because of economy of scale, can deliver genomics data at large scale in less time and less costs. However, the main question still remains (and international community needs to work) about the data analysis, interpretation and making its use in crop breeding. In this context, we need to have good (and sustainable) capacity (both human as well as infrastructure) in developing countries in addition to breeders-friendly decision support tools. In the January issue of Nature Biotechnology (30, 1172-1176; http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v30/n12/full/nbt.2440.html), together with some colleagues (Jean-Marcel Ribaut, Ed Buckler, Roberto Tuberosa, Antoni Rafalski and Peter Langridge), we discussed some of these issues that how genomics can improve crop productivity of so-called 'orphan' or 'less-studied' crops. 

I would also like to avail of this opportunity to extend sincere thanks to FAO and especially John Ruane, Moderator, to organize such e-conferences. These conferences are very useful (without spending time and money in travel to different places) for sharing the ideas and learn from each other.

Rajeev K. Varshney, PhD, FNAAS
Principal Scientist (Applied Genomics) &
Director, Centre of Excellence in Genomics, ICRISAT; 
Adjunct Professor (Plant Biology), University of Western Australia; and             
Theme Leader, CGIAR Generation Challenge Program 
Mailing Address: 
Centre of Excellence in Genomics (CEG), Building # 300
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Patancheru - 502 324, Greater Hyderabad, 
India 
e-mail: R.K.Varshney (at) CGIAR.ORG

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