wheat genome plotted.

[Terrywoodenpic]

BBC News - Wheat genome may help tackle food shortages

Uk scientists complete the wheat genome and make it public for free...
No question of Patents now.

American agro-buisness will not be pleased.

The wheat genomeis five times the size of the human one, and they did it in one year.

 

[evolved yet?]

Hmmm... really? I thought they did that awhile ago.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Hmmm... really? I thought they did that awhile ago.

Seems not.... the scientists involved announced this last friday.

 

[evolved yet?]

I guess my expectations made me think that would have been sequenced earlier as it is relevant to survival.

 

[Nepenthe]

BBC News - Wheat genome may help tackle food shortages

Uk scientists complete the wheat genome and make it public for free...
No question of Patents now.

American agro-buisness will not be pleased.

The wheat genomeis five times the size of the human one, and they did it in one year.

This story is now two months old but I'm always amused at Terry's American-vs-Brit interpretation of every event. But it's still interesting in how Terry' got it wrong. What the British scientists did is not even close to mapping the entire genome of an organism. Very simply put they took the 17 million base pairs and segregated it into smaller packets of 300 to 500 base pairs. They then deciphered the string of code in each "packet" yet the order itself remains unknown. The sequence the British researchers have are comparable to a chaotic clutter of strands all containing the letters from a set of encyclopedias. The big clue that the Brits' claims were hyperbolic was that it was announced at a press release and not in a peer reviewed publication. That's a big warning sign. Neil Hall, the main scientist from the team making grandiose claims has now back pedaled and admitted they hope to have something published within the year.

We'll see I guess.

Also, the IWGSC strongly disagrees with the BBSRC's conclusions. The AP press release exaggerated the BBSRC's claims:

"...this is an important step but significant work remains to be done to achieve a complete genome sequence” and the “full sequenced genome requires further read-throughs, assembly of the data into chromosomes and significant work to fully annotate the sequence data”.

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It's exciting research and the practical benefits will be astounding, but this may be yet another case of weak science reporting:

"The IWGSC concurs wholeheartedly with the statement that the complete genome sequence of wheat will usher in a new era of wheat improvement. And, we agree with the press comments that the complete sequence will be a “scientific tour de force” that will be “the most significant breakthrough in wheat production in 10,000 years”. Unfortunately, however, this is far from being the case at present and this premature claim is jeopardizing the ongoing international efforts to truly achieve a genome sequence with high utility for wheat in the next five years."
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