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Journalism of Courage
An international team — including Indian scientists — on a giant 10-nation project, have for the first time sequenced the entire genome of rice. This will make it much easier to breed higher-yielding varieties.
The International Rice Genome Sequencing Project, launched seven years ago, was led by Japan. This week, through a paper in Nature, the consortium put in public domain ‘‘a highly accurate finished sequence of the rice genome’’. This is the first crop plant whose entire genetic blueprint has been unravelled.
Gurdev Khush, a former chief breeder of rice at the International Rice Research Institute, Manila, Philippines, and now at the University of California, Davies, described it as a great achievement — a one-off ‘‘man on the moon type project’’.
He expressed the hope that the ‘‘useful genes identified or cloned will help in rice improvement’’.
The earlier versions were rough drafts and hence not very useful for breeders. The $-200 million project involved over 250 scientists from Japan, USA, France, Taiwan, China, India, South Korea, Thailand, Brazil and United Kingdom. They have now sequenced the 370 million base pairs of rice identifying the locations of over 35,000 genes that make the rice plant.
Of the two most common rice varieties of the world, the team chose the ‘Japonica’ variety and now the Indian team hopes to pitch in and complement the sequencing of the ‘Indica’ variety. India contributed to about 10 per cent of the global sequencing effort and spent about Rs 50 crore on this endeavour in the past four years.
The 28-member Indian initiative was jointly led by Dr. Akhilesh K. Tyagi of the University of Delhi (South Campus), New Delhi, and Dr. N. K. Singh of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, with support from the Indian government.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Kapil Sibal, Minister for Science and Technology, said ‘‘it’s a revolutionary landmark that could ensure India’s food security’’ since ‘‘India now has complete access to the entire rice genome with no encumbrance related to intellectual property rights.’’
The Indian government has already initiated a Rs 36-crore functional genomics project which Tyagi says ‘‘will help to mine the useful genes’’. There will be a global race now to identify the valuable genes from the plethora of information that has been generated and these ‘‘precious genes’’, says Tyagi, can definitely be patented.
