From 5–7 March 2009 GCP held a workshop on molecular breeding (MB), bringing together over 70 participants from the GCP community and beyond. The meeting's primary goal was to spur focused debates, with input from both industry and the public sector, on the definition of, and perspectives on, molecular-assisted breeding (MAB) in the context of a proposed MB platform.
The proposed platform will serve as a one-stop-shop for information, analytical tools and related services to design, conduct and analyse MAB experiments.
The three-day event followed a tight schedule, structured around the sharing of viewpoints and experiences followed by time-restricted question and answer sessions; an overview of the proposed MB platform, and an examination of use cases, support services and analytical and visualisation tools. The heavy content was broken into manageable pieces through the incorporation of interactive World Café sessions and smaller parallel group discussions.
View a selection of presentations from the event, together with the agenda and list of participants
Following on from the recent announcement on the forthcoming 2009 Annual Research Meeting (ARM), to be held from 20–26 September 2009, GCP is pleased to confirm the venue for the meeting as Bamako, Mali at the Laico L’Amitié Bamako Hotel.
Further details will be posted to the ARM webpage in due course.
More materials from the 2nd Genotyping Support Service workshop (January 2009), including presentations, participant feedback and a photo gallery are now online.
A new book, entitled Gene flow between crops and their wild relatives, co-authored by GCP Subprogramme 5 Leader Carmen de Vicente, is set to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press and released for sale in November 2009. The book is a direct outcome of a three-year GTZ-funded project on The gene flow risk assessment of genetically-engineered crops.
The project, which came to a close in 2008, addressed the concern about the likelihood for gene flow and introgression from genetically-modified (GM) crop varieties to wild populations, particularly in centres of origin and diversity of crop plants. A major objective of the project was to provide support tools to assist in making well-informed and scientifically sound decisions about the ecological risk of releasing GM crops in or around areas with concentrated crop diversity, taking into account the facts that gene flow and introgression exist, and that the preservation of crop genetic resources in their habitat is a requisite for the sustainable development of modern crops.
For more details on the book, please visit the AllBookstores.com website.
More information on the project and its outcomes can be found on the Bioversity International website.
GCP congratulates Carmen for her key contribution to this important resource for researchers, as well as decision- and policy-makers.
GCP is pleased to announce the winners of its 2nd Genotyping Support Service call for proposals. This call was launched in June 2008 in coordination and collaboration with calls from the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building.
Details of the winners of all three calls are published in our Capacity-building corner.
GCP’s Subprogramme 2 Leader Rajeev Varshney, who carries out his SPL role on a half-time basis concurrent with his ICRISAT responsibilities, has been awarded the Young Scientist Medal 2008 by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA). INSA, the most prestigious science academy in India, confers this award to young scientists under 35 who have made notable research contribution to science and technology.
Rajeev has won this award based on his significant contribution to the development of modern genomic tools for legumes and cereals applied to crop improvement.
In addition to this award, Rajeev became an Associate Fellow in 2008 at the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) of India, and also won the Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award 2007 from The National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI).
Please join us in celebrating Rajeev’s exceptional recognition. Congratulations Rajeev!
From 13th─17th November 2008 participants hailing from 28 countries joined forces for a GCP SP1-SP5 coordinated workshop on 'Reference sets of food crop germplasm for international collaboration' in Montpellier, France.
The workshop, whose audience was drawn from across the plant science spectrum, focused on both the aspects involved in the development of, and the next steps required to take advantage of, a major GCP product: diverse germplasm reference samples with validated data of reference markers, soon to be accessible as a global public good in a robust form.
For further feature stories, please visit our Capacity-building corner
Following the recently announced sharpening of GCP’s research focus, resulting in the launch of seven trait–crop combination Challenge Initiatives (see Issue 35 of GCP News), GCP is pleased to announce the Product Delivery Coordinators (PDCs), who will lead the Challenge Initiatives (CIs):
Cereals
1. Nourollah Ahmadi, CIRAD (CI: Improving drought tolerance in rice for Africa)
2. Richard Trethowan, Plant Breeding Institute, University of Sydney, Australia (CI: Improving drought tolerance in wheat for Asia)
3. Oumar Niangado, Syngenta Foundation (CI: Improving drought tolerance in sorghum for Africa)
4. Leon Kochian, USDA–ARS, USA (CI: Comparative genomics to improve cereal yields in high-aluminium and low-phosphorous soils)
Legumes
5. Jeff Ehlers, University of California–Riverside, USA (CI: Improving drought tolerance in cowpeas for Africa)
6. Pooran Gaur, ICRISAT (CI: Improving drought tolerance in chickpeas for Africa and Asia)
Root and tubers
7. Emmanuel Okogbenin, National Root Crops Research Institute, Nigeria (CI: Improving cassava yield in Africa's drought-prone environments)
The main responsibility of the PDCs will be to manage and oversee the development and implementation of the CI delivery workplan, ensuring that impact indicators for each initiative will be reached by the end of GCP’s lifespan in 2013.
Please join us in welcoming the PDCs on board!
From 26th-30th January 2009, participants came together for the Second GCP Genotyping Support Services (GSS) Workshop at CIAT Headquarters in Cali, Colombia. The workshop was organised by GCP’s GSS coordinator Humberto Gómez, with assistance from GCP’s Laura Ruíz and CIAT’s Patricia Fajardo. Instructors Fred van Eeuwijk, Marcos Malosetti, and Joost Van Heerwaarden (Wageningen University, The Netherlands), together with Sam Geerts of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, were on hand to lend their expertise throughout the 5-day course.
Feedback and workshop materials are currently being collated, and will be posted to the website in due course.
For more information on the GCP's Genotyping Support Service, including details on the first GSS workshop in 2007, please visit our GSS homepage.
GCP is delighted to announce Honoré Kam as the winner of the Pioneer-GCP Fellowship programme November 2008 Call. Honoré, a soon-to-be-appointed rice breeder at his home institute of Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), Burkina Faso, will use the two-year funding award to support and further enhance his PhD studies on ‘Burkina Faso rice landraces diversity and breeding for resistance to Rice Yellow Mottle Virus’, a programme being carried out at the African Centre for Crop Improvement at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Please join us in congratulating Honoré on his success, and in wishing him all the best for his studies ahead!
More SP5-supported opportunities, including a second Pioneer-GCP Fellowship programme to be announced in March 2009, will be publicised through the Capacity-building corner and through GCP News.
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