As had been expected, February was an intense month at GCP, with three critical meetings running back-to-back. First was a workshop to officially launch the Molecular Breeding Platform (MBP) in Hyderabad India (17–20 February). The launch was immediately followed by an Informatics workshop, at the same venue from 20–22 February, in which the MBP users and developers reviewed and began to develop concrete information strategies for each use case. From the MBP, attention then turned to the GCP Wheat Challenge Initiative, with twin meetings taking place to launch a joint China–India research initiative to breed heat- and drought-tolerant wheat. The India launch was on 22–23 February in New Delhi, while the China launch was 25–26 February in Beijing.

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• MBP official launch workshop
• Informatics workshop for users of the MBP
• ‘Breaking new ground in MARS’: Wheat Challenge Initiative launch meetings in India and China
  

After months of preparatory discussions and virtual interactions, GCP wheat collaborators were finally brought together in February for twin meetings which took place in India and China, marking, together, the official launch meeting of GCP Challenge Initiative (CI) Improving drought tolerance in wheat for Asia, often referred to by its collaborators as ‘Wheat in Asia’.

Wheat in Asia is one of the seven GCP CIs that are a key priority for GCP in Phase II (2009–2013). The wheat CI is a joint China–India research initiative led by scientists from both countries, working in close liaison with several GCP partners to breed heat- and drought-tolerant wheat.

The launch meeting for the Indian CI, which took place on 22–23 February in New Delhi, and which was hosted by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, centred its discussions on the theme of Molecular breeding and selection strategies to combine and validate QTLs for improving water-use efficiency  and heat tolerance of wheat in India. There was much to be covered across the course of a two-day programme, which included – among other things – a technical session on project objectives, strategy and milestones; and sessions on capacity-building, data management and product development plans. A key outcome of the meeting was the finalisation of the proposal. Decisions on targeted deadlines and expected outputs were also taken. The meeting was rounded up by a field visit to some local wheat fields, including the proposed site for the phenotyping facility development.

The launch of the Chinese wheat CI took place immediately after its Indian counterpart on 25–26 February in Beijing, China, and focused on Breeding and selection strategies to combine and validate QTLs for WUE and heat tolerance in China. The meeting, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), involved discussions on the CI workplan, focusing on the main themes of germplasm (ie, its availability and logistics of distribution), phenotyping sites and protocols, and genotyping. Timelines and milestones were agreed upon, and matters of data management and curation as well as training and capacity building were discussed. As in the Indian CI launch workshop, the group learnt about preparation of solid delivery plans from GCP Product Delivery Leader Larry Butler, before taking advantage of a designated timeslot to prepare their own delivery plans on-site at the meeting. The formulation of such Delivery Plans marks a key element of GCP’s highly structured approach towards the Wheat Challenge Initiative, an approach which is also strengthened by the project-specific breeding schemes jointly designed with SP3 Leader Xavier Delannay, in close consultation with project teams. This structured approach aims at not only ensuring delivery but also long-term and sustained impact beyond the project horizon.

For more information on the two workshops, including a Feature story, agendas and lists of participants, please visit our Workshop resources page within GCP’s Capacity-building corner. Additional presentations from the events will be made available in due course.

More information on GCP’s Challenge Initiatives is available here.

From 17–20 February 2010, collaborators came together for the official launch meeting of GCP’s Molecular Breeding Platform (MBP), held in Hyderabad, India, and hosted by the International Crops Research Institute in the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

The MBP is a broad initiative that is not exclusively limited to molecular breeding: the platform will blend molecular breeding and phenotypic selection as appropriate to serve breeding goals. As such, it aims to unite three main groups: plant breeders, the developers of tools that breeders need and service providers for breeding programmes. The project, which was initiated in September 2009, is jointly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GCP’s core funders, including the European Commission and the UK’s Department for International Development.

MBP project teams first met at a workshop in Montpellier, France, in March 2009, to design the initiative. This Hyderabad workshop in February 2010 was the team’s second face-to-face meeting. Participants re-examined the steps to realise the MBP’s vision, assessed progress in the first six months, and adjusted course as necessary following the consultations. Specific objectives were to clarify expectations of all stakeholders in the MBP, review the current status of services and applications, and to verify workplans for platform developers.

For more information on both the workshop and the MBP project, see:

• Press release (with a link to a short Feature story on the workshop, as well as to Workshop outcomes, including agenda and presentations)
• For an overview of the MBP, including details on Objectives, past and forthcoming events, related publications and more, please visit the MBP homepage
  

Following the launch meeting of the Molecular Breeding Platform (MBP) workshop (17–20 February 2010), users and developers of the MBP came together at an Informatics workshop from 22–24 February 2010 in Hyerdabad, India.

The workshop, attended by nearly 40  people, was the first opportunity for users and developers to meet face-to-face and review or begin to develop concrete information strategies for each use case. Developers demonstrated applications currently available through the MBP for breeding information management, whilst use case representatives presented their current strategies, procedures and applications for breeding logistics and data management.

The two groups discussed each strategy in the context of its suitability for molecular breeding, its shareability and its conformity with platform requirements, modifying strategies where necessary and making plans to implement the modified strategies.

The key objective of the workshop was for use case representatives to leave with a good knowledge of what applications were available through the platform, how these could fit into their data management strategy and how to go about implementing this integration.

A list of participants is available on the MBP informatics workshop webpage. More information, including a technical programme and presentations, can be accessed here.  

Following our announcement in September 2009 regarding the release of a Beta version of the latest Learning module on Marker-Assisted Breeding from GCP’s Subprogramme 5, a final version of the materials is now available online.

For those with limited internet access or connectivity, the material is available on CD-Rom, and can also be downloaded onto a computer for easy, uninterrupted viewing at any time.

To access the material, and to see other material from GCP’s series of online Learning materials, please visit our Capacity-building corner.

Following our announcement in September 2009 on a Beta version of our latest learning module on marker-assisted breeding, a release version is now available online.

The module is also available on CD–Rom, and can also be downloaded onto a computer for easy, uninterrupted viewing at any time.

To access the module, and to learn more about GCP’s series of online Learning materials, please visit our Capacity-building corner.

GCP scientist Yunbi Xu has written a 752-page book on 'Molecular Plant Breeding', considered to be an encyclopedic handbook for molecular breeding in plants. The book is dedicated to Nobel Peace Laureate and renowned wheat scientist, Dr Norman E Borlaug, who passed away in September 2009.

The book, to be published on 26th February 2010 by CAB International, UK, took nearly a decade to prepare, and has been reviewed by over 30 worldwide experts. Xu was the sole author of the book, although the publication contains a foreword from both Dr Ronald L Phillips (University of Minnesota, USA) and from Dr Borlaug himself.

The book contains 15 chapters in total, with Molecular Plant Breeding Tools, Populations in Genetics and Breeding, theory and practice of Marker-Assisted Selection and Intellectual Property Rights being just a few of the themes examined.

A preview of the preliminary pages of the book, including a memory note to Dr Borlaug, a table of contents and the forewords, is available on our Research publications page.

Following our announcement of last year on a soon-to-be-published book co-written by GCP SP5 Leader Carmen de Vicente, we are pleased to announce that the book, entitled Gene flow between crops and their wild relatives, has been published by Johns Hopkins University Press and is now available in the public domain.

The publication, which has been praised as a “must-have book for anyone who is developing or regulating a transgenic crop”, provides the scientific basis for analysing the chances of gene flow and introgression from twenty genetically-modified crop varieties to their wild populations. The book examines both major staple and minor, or ‘orphan’, food crops considered vital to food security, including barley, maize, cotton, cowpea, wheat, pearl millet, and rice.

Through crop-specific analyses of the possible ecological implications of gene escape, together with full-colour world maps demonstrating the modeled distributions of crops and wild relatives, readers are offered a means of a means of evaluating areas of possible gene flow.
 
In presenting systematic, non-biased findings, the book promises to promote well-informed decision making and the conservation of wild relative crops, representing a key tool for anyone working towards the goal of food security whilst also preserving crop biodiversity.

GCP extends its congratulations to Carmen for this this most noteworhy achievement!

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2006 GCP Fellow Maxwell Darko Asante from the CSIR–Crops Research Institute in Ghana has seen his paper on The genetic origin of fragrance in NERICA1 published in the online version of highly esteemed journal Molecular Breeding.

The paper, based on Maxwell’s GCP-funded fellowship project on Quality rices for West Africa: mapping of aroma gene in Nerica rice, carried out at Cornell University, USA, and supervised by GCP alumni scientist Susan McCouch, examines the cause and origin of fragrance in NERICA1, a fragrant rice inbred line developed from an inter-specific cross between two non-fragrant parents.

The paper, for which Maxwell was the lead author, was also the work of contributing authors from Cornell Univeristy, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana and African Rice Centre (AfricaRice) in Benin.

Please join us in congratulating Maxwell and his collaborators for their key achievement!

To read Maxwell’s paper, go to our Research Publications page.

To view details on other GCP Fellows, please visit our Capacity-building corner.

GCP Subprogramme 2 Leader Rajeev Varshney has been elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), India. The highly prestigious Indian Academy, which focuses on the broad field of agricultural sciences, was established to provide a forum for agricultural scientists to share views and knowledge on agricultural research, education and extension, and to present views of the scientific community as policy inputs to planners and decision-makers at various levels.

Elected Fellows of the Academy are recognised for their contributions to science, and are considered distinguished personalities in the field of agriculture and allied sciences, both from India and abroad. In Rajeev’s case, the award is particularly noteworthy in consideration of his young age, since such fellowships are ordinarily granted to senior scientists.

More information on NAAS can be found here.

Please join us in congratulating Rajeev on yet another remarkable achievement!

Following on from the recent announcement regarding the extension and re-submission of proposals for the GCP’s Genotyping Support Service (GSS), we wish to update you on a few key points:

1. In light of the recent Christmas break which appears to have interrupted the submission process since we could not provide backup support where needed, please note that the deadline for submissions of GSS proposals has been re-extended to Sunday 17th January 2010. This new deadline supersedes both the recent 4th January 2010 extension announced on our website, as well as the original deadline of 15th December 2009, as announced in Issue 41 of GCP News.

2. All applicants are asked to take note of the following:

Regretfully, we have recently become aware that due to technical problems, the latest version of the GSS Request Agreement form was not accessible to all members of the public from our website. Please note that the PDF document here (indicated as ‘Dec 2009’ version in the footer) is the final and definitive version of the GSS Request Agreement form, replacing all previous versions (including the updated version disseminated on November 17th). Participants who have started working on, or who have already submitted a proposal must therefore complete and submit the above form, replacing any previous versions of the form. Please note that GSS proposals submitted with previous versions of the GSS Request Agreement form are invalid and cannot therefore be accepted.

3. For those who have already completed and submitted their proposals online, we invite you to take advantage of this window of opportunity to check the following:

i. that your submission is complete and that all necessary requirements, including the completed Genotyping Service Request Agreement form and the List of germplasm have been fulfilled.

ii. that the status of your proposal is indeed marked as ‘Submitted’ on the online system. Please note that saving changes on the system without thereafter hitting the ‘Submit’ button will mean that your application has NOT been sent to GCP, so please check this particular detail carefully to ensure you are satisfied that the proposal has indeed been submitted successfully, and not just saved on the system.

4. In the event that you have already submitted your form and need to make changes but are experiencing difficulties in accessing the submitted form on the system, please contact Humberto Gomez for assistance, with copy to Aida Martinez. These people should also be contacted if you face any other technical or system-related difficulties.

5. In regards to the scenario outlined in point 4 above (whereby you have already submitted a proposal but wish to make changes), please do NOT submit an entirely new application as any subsequent or duplicate forms under the same name will be disregarded by the system.

For those who have not yet submitted or started working on a GSS proposal but would like to do so, please visit our Capacity-building corner.

Extending our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused as a result of these system-related errors, and thanking you in advance for your patience.

The Generation Challenge Programme is seeking a motivated and enthusiastic candidate for the position of Communications Assistant in the Communications Unit. The selected candidate will assist in communications and public relations functions within the organisation, to ensure smooth information flow both internally and externally. It involves writing and editing functions for both print and electronic media, and related administrative activities.

This position will report to the Communications Manager and will be based at GCP headquarters in Mexico. The position is for an initial one-year contract with high probability of renewal, depending on performance and funding.

Application deadline: 20th January 2010

For further details on the position, organisation and on how to apply, please download the Vacancy Announcement.

A team of researchers have completed a first draft of the cassava (Manihot esculenta) genome sequence – a significant first step which promises to aid the rapid progress of cassava research activities and outcomes, both for GCP and cassava researchers worldwide.

Building on this newly available genome sequence, and in response to the severe limitations faced by cassava farmers in the developing world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a US$1.3 million grant to University of Arizona researchers who will lead an international consortium to develop a genome variation database that will provide a range of breeding tools to aid farmers in developing cassava, with a special focus on increased resistance to Cassava Brown Streak Disease Virus (CBSD). Next generation sequencing technologies will be used to develop a large database of markers, and all information and tools generated by the project will be freely available worldwide.

Team members of the project hail from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), 454 Life Sciences, a Roche Company, USA and the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland, USA, the latter of which sees GCP scientist Pablo Rabinowicz building on his research carried out under Subprogramme 2 Competitive project G3007.03 Development of genomics resources for molecular breeding of drought tolerance in cassava. Results from this new collaboration of partners under the Gates-funded project will contribute directly to GCP’s cassava Challenge Initiative.

For more information, see press release

GCP will host a workshop on 11th January 2010 as part of the Plant & Animal Genome Conferences (PAG) XVIII, to be held from 9th to 13th January in San Diego, California, USA. The workshop will be led by GCP's Subprogramme 1 Leader Jean Christophe Glaszmann and Subprogramme 2 Leader Rajeev Varshney. Invited speakers will include a number of GCP scientists who will cover a range of topics, including genomewide SNP patterns in rice; SNP discovery, validation, and mapping in groundnut; and statistical genetics within the GCP Molecular Breeding Platform, to name just a few.

Outcomes from the workshop will be reported after the event. In the meantime, view the proposed workshop programme.

Following on from our recent announcement on a partially GCP-funded banana genome sequencing project which promises to lead to the establishment of a catalogue of genes contained in banana, news of the research underway has been picked up by the French media, with an article having been featured in large-print French magazine Biofutur.

The project, with a total budget of 3.7 million Euros, focuses on the Musa acuminate species (accession Pahang HD) – the species which enters into the composition of dessert and cooking bananas, with its genome consisting of 600 million base pairs, spread over 11 different chromosomes.

The combined use of the new Titanium® high-throughput sequencing technology as a complement to traditional sequencing, and the complete homozygosity of the banana strain created by Agropolis–CIRAD will enable the production of a final sequence of very high quality, which will guarantee the exhaustive identification of the genes, according to the project collaborators.

The researchers involved reveal that this sequencing project represents a technological first, applied to a genome which is four times the size of the first plant to be sequenced in 2000. Public access to the results via databases promise to facilitate important and rapid progress in the genetics of the banana, thereby forming a basis for the improvement and development of new varieties with a broad genetic base, combining productivity, quality of the fruit and resistance to diseases and parasites.

To view the press clipping, please visit our Public awareness page.

More details on the project are available on the Agropolis–CIRAD website (in French).