The outcomes of a joint Vietnam-UK research project on sequencing the genomes of a number of Vietnamese indigenous rice varieties were made public at a workshop in Hanoi on August 28.

The project, running between January 2011 and June 2013, is within the international cooperation framework between Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. As a result, scientists from the two countries have decoded the genomes of 36 rice varieties.
This is the first time Vietnam has fully decoded genomes of rice, which will help scientists in their research on the conservation of gene resource and the selection of high-yield and high-quality varieties, capable of resisting unfavorable conditions, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Viet Thanh said at the workshop.

Through the project , Vietnamese scientists have access to advanced gene decoding methods and equipment that will help them build a rice genetic database for Vietnam. An additional 600 varieties of rice are expected to be decoded in the second phase of the project.

See the full article from the Vietnam News Agency at http://en.vietnamplus.vn/Home/VietnamUK-team-decode-Vietnamese-rice-geno….