3,000 Rice Genome Sequences Made Publicly Available on World Hunger Day

The 3000 Rice Genomes Project, a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), has announced the publication of the genome sequencing of 3,000 rice strains, together with the release of this entire dataset in citable format in the journal GigaScience's open-access database, GigaDB.

The publication and release of the dataset which quadruple the current amount of publicly available rice sequence data, coincides with World Hunger Day (May 28, 2014) to highlight efforts to develop resources that will help improve global food security, especially in the poorest areas of the world.

IRRI Director General Dr. Robert Ziegler said, "access to 3,000 genomes of rice sequence data will tremendously accelerate the ability of breeding programs to overcome key hurdles mankind faces in the near future." He added that this project will add an immense amount of knowledge to rice genetics, and enable detailed analysis by the global research community to ultimately benefit the poorest farmers who grow rice under the most difficult conditions.

For more details, read the news release at http://www.genomics.cn/en/news/show_news?nid=100006. The open access paper in GigaScience is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2047-217X-3-7.