New Center to Bring Cornell's Agricultural Innovations to China

A new Agricultural Technology Innovation Center that may help make agricultural advances such as transgenic drought- and salt-tolerant rice available in China has been established at Cornell University in the U.S. The center's creation was facilitated by a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between Cornell University and the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture's Department of Science and Education.

"The MOU reflects the fact that we really want to work together," said Alan Paau, vice provost for technology transfer and economic development. "We want to be doing things that not only benefit our researchers' understanding of the real problems in China, but we also want to help China benefit through our domain expertise." The new center is named after Ray Wu, late Cornell professor of molecular biology and genetics, who was widely recognized as a father of plant genetic engineering, to honor his career and efforts to help China improve life sciences education standards, among other things.

An initial project may include sending animal vaccines to China. The vaccines, developed at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, have already worked well in the United States and Europe. Cornell may also help Chinese researchers engineer drought- or salt-tolerant rice that were developed by Wu.

The press release is available at http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct09/CornellChinaMOU.html