Biotech Updates

New Knowledge Leads to Improved Rice Quality

May 11, 2007

The International Network Quality Rice is a new initiative by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which aims to help rice breeders around the world develop varieties with improved quality traits such as better taste, aroma, and cooking characteristics as well as higher levels of nutrition. This will lead to a boost in the income of poor farmers and to more nutritious and better tasting food. The quality rice network met for the first time last month during a workshop held at IRRI.

“Many of the issues we discussed may not have even been considered a few years ago, but, with the recent advances in molecular biology and exciting new areas such as metabolomics (the whole-genome assessment of metabolites), we can do things now that we could only dream about before”, said Melissa Fitzgerald, the convener and head of IRRI’s Grain Quality, Nutrition, and Postharvest Center.

The news article can be read at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/irri-nki050707.php.