A team of scientists from The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), in partnership with the Agricultural Genetics Institute (AGI) has started its bioinformatics training programme in Vietnam as part of an ongoing project to identify 600 rice varieties that could accelerate crop breeding. Led by Dr Jose De Vega, the training will equip Vietnamese scientists with the skills in bioinformatics and genomics for crop analysis, building future knowledge and databases.

Rice, a staple food for a population of 90 million in Vietnam and a main exporter commodity of the country, is facing an increasing threat from climate change such as emerging pathogens, drought and rising sea levels. The areas under greatest risk are the deltas of the Red and Mekong rivers, which represent the major rice growing regions of Vietnam.

Dr De Vega, Acting Head of the Crop Genomics Group at TGAC, said: “We will complement the generation of this data with the development of databases and the application of bioinformatics pipelines to identify associations of alleles with specific phenotypes. We expect to characterise markers that will enable more efficient rice breeding. The use of genomic approaches to rice breeding in Vietnam builds on the experience and knowledge that we have developed while working in wheat and barley genomics.”

“Rice has a simple genome for which many genomics resources have been already generated and it offers an excellent model for the evaluation and assessment of new strategies for breeding that could later be applied to more complex crops,” Dr De Vega added.