Cracking crop genomes for food security

October 8, 2008 - Exclusive By Massie Santos Ballon, Cleantech Group Experts say more investment in plant science research, such as the wheat breakthrough, is crucial to future crop productivity. French researchers took the first step last week in mapping the wheat genome, the genetic instruction manual for the crop. By publishing a physical map of the largest wheat chromosome in the Oct. 3 issue of the journal Science, Blaise Pascal University researcher Etienne Paux and his colleagues shattered the long-held belief that the grain’s genome was too complex to sequence. "Our work may pave the way for a major change in how the next genomes for de novo sequencing are selected, thereby accelerating improvements in economically important crop species," Paux and his colleagues wrote in their paper. The work also provides... [read full story]