Budgetary constraints left Canada on the sidelines when the Arabidopsis genome was mapped.
But the head of plant genomics research for the National Research Council says it’s time for this country to be directly involved in the next big steps in plant gene research.
Bill Crosby, program leader for plant genomics at the NRC’s Plant Biotechnology Institute, said there is a commitment to be part of the international consortium of scientists working on identifying the function of the genes in the Arabidopsis genome.
“There are opportunities at the front line of gene function discovery that tend to accrue to those who are playing the game as opposed to those who are watching from the stands,” he said.
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“We want to capture as many of those opportunities as we can for the Canadian agricultural development scene.”
While the Arabidopsis genome information was rapidly made public and is freely available to researchers around the world, those who were doing the original work were able to see opportunities and capitalize on them first, he said.
That is why Canada should also be involved in the next big sequencing program, the one focused on rice, he said.
“The size of the Arabidopsis genome is about one third that of rice. But obviously rice, with the smallest known genome of the grass family, is going to have an enormous direct implication on cereal development.”
A consortium of Canadian scientists is asking the federal government for funds to participate in the rice project.
“We need to make the argument of the importance of the link between the model systems and new knowledge discovery and application to crops.”
