News & Events
Scientists all over the world are working to fight the new coronavirus. Aside from vaccines and potential therapies, they are also developing diagnostic tests, understanding the virus's basic biology, and modeling the epidemiology. Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator Jesse Bloom and his colleagues have cataloged how nearly 4,000 different mutations alter SARS-CoV-2's ability to bind to human cells.
Wheat blast (WB) is a devastating disease in South America, and it recently also emerged in Bangladesh. Host resistance to WB has relied heavily on the 2NS/2AS translocation, but the responsible QTL has not been mapped and its phenotypic effects in different environments have not been reported. In the current study, a recombinant inbred line population with 298 progenies was generated, with the female and male parents being Caninde#1 (with 2NS) and Alondra (without 2NS), respectively.
Edible plant-based vaccines were developed to become part of the solution to address the possible hazards associated with the parenteral vaccines. Experts from India say that edible vaccines may eventually eradicate the global outbreak of infectious diseases. According to the experts, edible vaccines are made by plants with antigenic protein introduced into the plant cells.
Animal biotechnology has been primed to contribute significantly towards addressing the challenge of food security, especially in the developing world. During a webinar organized by ISAAA AfriCenter, experts agreed that animal biotechnology is an inevitable part of the toolkit to address climate-related challenges. Prof. Steve Kemp, an animal geneticist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), underscored the importance of genetic selection in driving improvements in productivity.
Commonly, QTL detection in multi-parent populations (MPPs) data measured in multiple environments (ME) is done by analyzing genotypic values ‘averaged’ across environments. This method ignores the environment-specific QTL (QTLxE) effects. Running separate single environment analyses is a possibility to measure QTLxE effects, but those analyses do not model the genetic covariance due to the use of the same genotype in different environments. In this paper, we propose methods to analyse MPP-ME QTL experiments using simultaneously the data from several environments and modelling the genotypic covariance.
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new saliva test to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus faster and easier. The results from this diagnostic test are available in a few hours, and therefore easily communicated to people who were tested within the day. The test does not require special swabs or reagents that may be in short supply because it is highly sensitive to detecting even tiny levels of virus in a saliva sample.
The research team led by professor Geung-Ju Lee of Chungnam National University and Toolgen announced that the new variety of petunia co-developed with CRISPR genome editing technology has been determined as non-GMO by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The decision was released under the "Am I Regulated?" program of the USDA. The program is designed to verify the presence of GMOs for crops developed with new breeding techniques such as CRISPR technology.
In Europe, the most economically significant use of barley is the production of malt for use in the brewing and distilling industries. As such, selection for traits related to malting quality is of great commercial interest. In order to study the genetic basis of variation for malting quality traits in UK cultivars, a historical set of trial data was collated from national and recommended list trials from the period 1988 to 2016. This data was used to estimate variety means for 20 quality related traits in 451 spring barley cultivars, and 407 winter cultivars.
Many scientists have become increasingly concerned with the course and status of science-related policies in recent years, and these concerns have only grown in the past months as governments have had to face a global pandemic. As experts in our respective fields, scientists have an obligation and an opportunity to help to inform science policy.
Coronavirus school closures left many science professors scrambling for new ways to teach concepts traditionally explored in the lab. Not so for Pia Sörensen, a senior preceptor in chemical engineering and applied materials at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. She breathed easy, knowing that even without advanced scientific instruments, her students could still access the only laboratories they really needed: their own kitchens.
Monocarpy versus polycarpy is one of the fundamental developmental dichotomies in flowering plants. Advances in the understanding of the genetic basis of this dichotomy are important for basic biological reasons and practically for genetic manipulation of growth development in economically important plants. Nine wheat introgression lines (ILs) harboring germplasm of the Lophopyrum elongatum genome present in the octoploid amphiploid Triticum aestivum cv. Chinese Spring (subgenomes AABBDD) × L. elongatum (genomes EE) were selected from a population of ILs developed earlier.
A systemic analysis of the role that climate, natural resource and food systems play in conflict and peace is key to design and implement interventions addressing and preventing conflict. This document is one part of the 6-policy note outputs from the CGIAR Climate Security Webinar Series. These notes summarize the key messages made during the webinar panel discussion.