- Chronic endocrine disorders
3 July 2001
"Father of Hybrid Rice" Professor Longping
Yuan and The Chinese University
Collaborated in Engineering the Next Generation
of Chinese Hybrid Rice
Harvesting on the combined efforts of traditional breeding techniques
and state-of-the-art biotechnology, Chinese scientists from the University
Grants Committee Area of Excellence on Plant and Fungal Biotechnology Centre
at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China National Hybrid Rice Research
and Development Centre and Washington State University in the U.S.A. are
collaborating on an enhancement programme of the Chinese hybrid rice for
the 21st Century.
Coined by scientific and agricultural communities worldwide as the "father
of hybrid rice", Professor Longping Yuan will visit The Chinese University
of Hong Kong from 2-5 July 2001. In addition to deliver public speeches
to introduce the recent developments of Chinese hybrid rice as Wei Lun
Visiting Professor, Professor Yuan will expedite and further materialize
the captioned research collaboration.
Professor Yuan is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
and the Director of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development
Centre. Beginning in the 60s, Professor Yuan has been using hybridization
techniques to improve rice production. To recognize his prominent
contributions to World's food production and agricultural sciences, Professor
Yuan received numerous awards and prizes including the prestigious "Nikkei
Asia Prizes" and became the first-time winner of the China National Top
Scientific Technology Award last year.
Rice provides the major source of food for half of the World's population.
The development of hybrid rice, as hybrid corn, largely increased its productivity.
Currently, hybrid rice occupies about half of the total rice cultivation
areas in China and its yield accounts for 57% of the total rice production.
Chinese hybrid rice developed by Professor Yuan is able to produce in average
20% more crop than normal, as a result 100 million people can benefit per
year. The market value of Chinese hybrid rice is 100 billion yuan
(HK$ 93.9 billion).
In order to further increase the yield of hybrid rice as well as enhancing
its quality and stress tolerance, Professor Yuan is conducting a research
collaboration with Professor Samuel Sun and Professor Hon-Ming Lam of the
Department of Biology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Professor
Maurice Ku of the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University.
With the help of advanced biotechnology and recent progress in the decoding
of rice genome, together with traditional breeding techniques, the collaborating
team aims to develop enhanced Chinese hybrid rice for the 21st Century.
Using traditional techniques, Professor Yuan anticipates a 10% to 15% increase
in the yield of the next generation super-hybrid rice over the current
Chinese hybrid rice. Biotechnology is expected to deliver a further
boost of 10% increase in the yield.
Since his successful cloning of the world's first plant gene in 1980,
Professor Sun has been actively involved in crop improvement programs using
biotechnology. His contributions to quality and nutritional improvement
are internationally recognized. Professor Ku is an expert in photosynthesis
regulation. In 2000, he reported the successful transformation of
a major photosynthetic gene from maize into rice. The photosynthetic
capacity and yield of the transformed rice were increased up to 30%.
With a good comprehension of advanced knowledge and techniques of biological
sciences, Professor Lam's researches are specializing in metabolic engineering
of nitrogen assimilation and molecular mechanism of stress tolerance, processes
that are closely related to plant growth and development.
Extended beyond a major international collaborated project involving
Chinese scientists from China, Hong Kong and U.S.A. using combined key
technologies, this team signifies a new alliance between traditional breeders
and molecular biologists as well as the synergy between new and old technologies.
This new trend of research will serve to provide technology reserves and
secure quality food supply to China and other parts of the world in the
21st Century.
|