GCP’s Subprogramme 5 is pleased to announce the launch of a new set of Learning Materials on Marker-Assisted Breeding (Beta version, September 2009). The materials, primarily developed by GCP collaborator Theresa Fulton of Cornell University, USA, with assistance from GCP consultant Robert Koebner, were designed to be used either as the basic material for a course or as a self-tutorial.

The module is geared towards scientists or upper-level students with a good background of biology, genetics and plant breeding, and is intended to complement both pre-existing and soon-to-come learning modules also funded by, or to be funded by, Subprogramme 5.

To access both this new set of materials and to learn about the other GCP Learning Materials, please visit our Capacity-building corner.

Following on from the recent announcement about the GCP Subprogramme 4/Subprogramme 2 workshop on Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology data analysis, held from 21–23 July 2009 in ICRISAT Headquarters, India, and organised by GCP’s Subprogramme 2 Leader Rajeev Varshney, materials from the workshop, including a full set of presentations, are now available online.

For materials generated from other GCP and non-GCP workshops, please visit our Capacity-building corner.

Kayoko Lyons is on internship with GCP, working under the direction of Subprogramme 5  Leader Carmen de Vicente on public awareness briefs highlighting the findings of SP5 socio-economic studies, as well as creating a GCP website on outputs from these studies.

For four weeks between July and August 2009, Kayoko was a welcome and infectiously enthusiastic addition at GCP Headquarters.

Kayoko recently graduated from the University of California–Berkeley, USA, with a BA in Economics. An American citizen with Japanese heritage, Kayoko’s people skills and ‘can do’ approach makes things happen, and she has ably tackled this substantial task, achieving great results within a very short time.

The new website, which is now undergoing the final finishing touches, will be launched shortly. GCP is grateful to Kayoko for her hard work and dedication, and for making this much-needed GCP resource a reality.

Kayoko is currently finalising the project from her new base in Ecuador.

Following a long and thorough recruitment process, GCP is delighted to announce the appointment of Larry Butler as GCP’s Product Delivery Leader. Larry, who took up the position on 7th September 2009, will coordinate, supervise and advise the seven GCP Product Delivery Coordinators (PDCs), who currently head GCP’s Challenge Initiatives (CIs). Together with the PDCs, Larry will oversee product delivery within each CI, assisting the GCP Management Team in operationalising and seamlessly integrating GCP’s complementary crop–farming system approach.

Larry, with an educational background in plant pathology, brings a wealth of professional experience to the new role, including 36 years of practical field experience as a plant pathologist and agronomist working with temperate, as well as tropical, field and horticultural crops. In past assignments Larry has carried out a 12-year tenure as a pathologist at the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), including six years as the Head of the CIMMYT Seed Health Unit, as well as building up six years of experience as a small cereals breeder, 18 years of project, laboratory and office management experience, and 14 years of product development experience on agricultural and horticultural crops in the U.S. Prior to embarking on this new challenge with GCP, Larry was working in the private sector. Please join us in welcoming Larry to the GCP team!

To see how the Product Delivery Leader role fits in with the rest of the decision-making bodies and roles within GCP's current operational structure, please visit our Project Development Guide

The GCP 2008 Annual Report and 2009 (Year six) workplan is now available in hard copy and online.

Those interested in receiving a print copy by post should contact Communications Assistant Kate Durbin.

To view the online version, as well as other current GCP publications, please visit our Recent publications page.

After months of discussions, brainstorming, design and preparatory work in collaboration with industry experts, public and private sector partners, and several complementary players from GCP’s broad network of collaborators, GCP is delighted to announce the launch of its Molecular Breeding Platform (MPB).

The MBP is conceived as a five-year project with a budget of US$21m, resulting from multilateral funding from various GCP donors, though largely supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project began in July 2009, although discussions on the need for, and relevance of, such a platform were initiated around the time of GCP’s 2008 Annual Research Meeting in September in Bangkok, Thailand, with follow-up activities proceeding at a fast and furious pace. One key event in the preparatory phase was a consultation and planning workshop held 5–7 March 2009 in Montpellier, France (see presentations).

The goal of the project, led by GCP Subprogramme 4 Leader Graham McLaren, is to establish and deploy a web-based Molecular Breeding Platform (MBP) as a one-stop-shop for information, analytical tools and related services to design and efficiently conduct molecular-assisted breeding experiments. It is hoped that such a platform will enable breeding programmes in the public and private sector to accelerate variety development for developing countries using marker technologies for various breeding purposes, as well as deliver support services to guide and train breeders from national agricultural research systems in accessing and using marker technologies.

For more information on the project, we invite you to visit the MBP collaborative website (under construction). See also the press release announcing the launch of the MBP project.

GCP collaborators working on a rice project in The Philippines start to see the results of their hard work come to fruition as the outcomes of their research feature in journal articles and press releases.

Results from the GCP SP2 Commissioned project G4005.35 ‘Sequencing multiple and diverse rice varieties: connecting whole-genome variation with phenotype’, led by Ken McNally of IRRI, have been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), news which was also featured in two press releases.

To view these press releases, as well as media attention given to other GCP projects, please visit our Public Awareness page.

A workshop on next generation sequencing (NGS) technology data analysis was held at ICRISAT Headquarters in India from 21–23 July 2009. The workshop, part of SP4 Commissioned project G4009.04: ‘Data analysis support for existing projects in SP2 with emphasis on analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data’, led by Rajeev Varshney (ICRISAT/GCP), was attended by approximately by 30 collaborators.

The aim of the workshop, primarily designed for bioinformaticians and programmers, and coordinated by Rajeev Varshney and B Manjula (ICRISAT), was to plan and develop strategies and tools for analysing NGS data, in light of the limitations of current tools. The event, spread over three days, followed a tightly-packed schedule comprising a mix of formal sessions on topics such as genomic resources, assembly and visualisation, SNP discovery and gene expression, as well as more informal brainstorming sessions, where the exchange of ideas and new insights amongst the varied and expert participants was facilitated.

Presentations and other materials from the workshop will be made available in due course.

Contact: Rajeev Varshney

From 29th June to 3rd July 2009, 26 participants from around the globe came together for an essentially practical, hands-on course on Marker-Assisted Breeding. The course, supported by GCP’s Subprogramme 5 and led by instructors Joost van Heerwaarden (University of California–Riverside), Hans Jansen and Marcos Malosetti (Wageningen University and Research Centre), with coordination from GCP’s SP5 Leader Carmen de Vicente, primarily targeted collaborators of GCP’s Tropical Legumes project. Course content comprised a healthy balance of theoretical sessions (derived from lectures and presentations) and practical tasks (based on example data together with the option for participants to work with their own data sets). Some of the key topics covered during the course included genetic linkage maps, phenotypic data analysis, QTL and QTLxE mapping, genetic diversity analysis and LD mapping.

To view presentations and other materials from the workshop, please visit our Capacity-building Corner.

GCP's SP5 is delighted to announce the launch of its molecular marker 'Toolbox'. This new resource aims to provide easy and unlimited access to existing information on publicly available molecular markers ready for use for marker-assisted selection in 19 food security crops, and aims to serve of particular use to developing country biotechnologists and plant breeders who often face difficulties in accessing such current information. The tool, which contains a wealth of information gathered from internet sources, public databases and papers, is the result of an SP5 project led by consultant Veerle Van Damme. For several months, Veerle has worked in close collaboration with an array of experts working on the 19 respective crops in order to collate a current and comprehensive set of molecular marker information. To find out more, please visit the Capacity-building corner website.