WASHINGTON, U.S.A., April 4, 2002: Two research teams, one from the West and one from the East, have collaborated their efforts as part of an international rice project to determine the genetic makeup of the grain. Both teams, the one in California located at Syngenta International Inc. in San Diego and led by Steven Briggs and Stephen Goff, and the one in Beijing led by Huanming Yang, used a scientific technique pioneered by Celera Genomics Corp. of Rockville. This technique, using the power of computers, “shreds an organisms genetic material into bits, reads the genetic letters making up each tiny piece, and puts the whole thing back together, like a jigsaw puzzle.” Amazingly the results of the new papers have determined that a rice plant can have a many as 55,000 genes whereas a human being has an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 genes. One rice expert consulted by HPI said this didn’t mean much as large sections of the genes have no active function.
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