6th Rice Genetics Symposium
16-19 November, Manila

Thai Princess opens RG6 at Manila Hotel to a record-breaking audience

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand officially opened the 6th International Rice Genetics Symposium yesterday (16 November) at the Manila Hotel. The 3-day conference is being attended by more than 800 scientists, researchers, exhibitors, and members of the media (see photos at left). When registration is finalized, this will prove to be the largest gathering of scientists ever hosted by IRRI in the Philippines.

Recognizing the significance of rice genetics in her special presentation on Monday morning, Her Royal Highness emphasized that genetics is an essential part of a solution to the problems in the rice industry. She also mentioned other important factors such as technology transfer and capacity building, handling of rice from farmers to the end consumers, sociocultural aspects, and the policymaking process.

Following her on the program, IRRI DG Robert Zeigler gave his keynote presentation, Rice genetics and its impact in a changing world. See the next story for more on his presentation and a link to the related press release.

RG6 is being held in conjunction with the 7th International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics and the Rice Annotation Project 6 (RAP6) Workshop, a project led by Japan on analyzing rice genome data.

The event covers the latest developments in evolutionary studies of rice, breeding research, mapping of genes and quantitative trait loci, identification and cloning of genes for biotic and abiotic stresses, gene expression, genomic databases, and mutant induction for functional genomics.

With almost 90 speakers and more than 400 scientific poster presentations, RG6 is providing an avenue for participants to exchange new research results from rice genetics and how to apply the new knowledge to overcome the problems threatening global food security. This Thursday (19 November), most of the participants will come to IRRI to view the Institute’s facilities and to have lunch. RG6 photos on flickr

Entire genetic diversity of rice to be revealed and shared

IRRI is inviting the global rice science community to join its vision to reveal the genetic diversity of more than 109,000 different types of rice and to make it available for rice breeders and farmers worldwide to breed and develop new rice varieties.

The vision aims to sequence the genomes, or all the genetic information, of all different types of rice in the International Rice Genebank—the world's most comprehensive collection of rice genetic diversity, including wild rice, rice's ancestors, and traditional, heirloom, and modern varieties.

"If we can sequence the genomes of all types of rice, we have truly opened the door to understand the rich genetic diversity of rice, to help conserve that diversity better, and to use it to breed improved rice varieties," said IRRI Director General Robert Zeigler in his keynote presentation during the 6th Rice Genetics Symposium. Full release | Zeigler RG6 Powerpoint

IRRI honors rice geneticist

Rice scientist Takuji Sasaki received the Rice Genetics Achievement Award during the conference dinner of the 6th International Rice Genetics Symposium held on 16 November at the Manila Hotel.

Dr. Sasaki was recognized for his exemplary contributions in the field and his long-lasting impact on rice science through his scientific achievements and contributions to rice genetics and molecular biology.

His achievements include pioneering work on rice genomics and the decoding of the rice genome, service to the global scientific community, and contributions to the discovery of many genes important for rice production. He is also recognized for his dedicated leadership in coordinating the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project, an unprecedented international undertaking involving many countries, laboratories, and researchers, thereby creating new opportunities for international collaboration and applications of genomics to crop improvement; his dedicated service to the research community, service on the editorial boards of major scientific journals, and, most recently, playing a key role in launching Rice, a journal dedicated to rice research; and his strong support to international agriculture and advocacy for education and training of a new generation of scientists for rice research.

Dr. Sasaki served as chair in one of the sessions of the ongoing RG6 symposium. He is currently vice president of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Japan. Plaque

50 years of rice science for a better world—and it's just the start

Today (17 November) IRRI embarks on its 50th anniversary celebrations to acknowledge how rice science has helped address food security, and to emphasize the ongoing need for rice science to tackle the challenges of poverty and climate change. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand formally launched IRRI's 50th anniversary at IRRI’s headquarters in the Philippines, which will include 12 months of special activities to draw the world’s attention to rice—the crop that feeds half the world—and opportunities to achieve global food security.

“The plight of over 1 billion people stricken with poverty, 70% of whom live in Asia and depend on rice as their staple food, is the driving force for our research,” said IRRI Director General Robert Zeigler.

“We must find solutions to help increase rice yields and improve the sustainability of rice production because as rice yields increase the incidence of poverty decreases,” he added.

In 50 years, IRRI’s high-yielding rice varieties and other technologies, plus extensive training, have contributed to the doubling of average world rice yields. This has averted famine and prevented millions of hectares of natural ecosystems from being converted to farmland. Full press release

Director general gives year-end report

IRRI Director General Robert Zeigler gave his year-end report to IRRI staff in Umali ABC on Friday (13 November) afternoon. He highlighted IRRI's rapid growth in 2009, significant events of the past months, and developments on the CGIAR Change Process that came out of the recent ExCo meeting in Rome that he attended. He also outlined the goals of the IRRI Fund, which officially opens its office in Singapore on 25 November.

Dr. Zeigler then turned the podium over to DPPC Michael Jackson, who brought the audience up to date on upcoming events tied to the launching of IRRI's 50th anniversary events, starting next Tuesday (17 November at IRRI) through to the April 2010 activities, and on to the International Rice Congress in Hanoi in November 2010. Audio of Drs. Zeigler and Jackson's presentations | Zeigler slides | Jackson slides

Ex-Gates official named to USAID
Source: Philanthropy.com

Rajiv J. Shah, a former official with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who currently works at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will be nominated to head the U.S. Agency for International Development, notes Government and Politics Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy's online column. The nomination comes as a relief to some aid groups, which have assailed the Obama administration for leaving the post vacant for nearly a year. Philanthropy.com

Typhoon Ondoy (international name Ketsana) aftermath

CERS will continue to accept donations in cash and kind, especially food, blankets, boots, medicines, and bottled water.

Those who wish to make a donation from abroad can send it to IRRI's HSBC-Collyer Quay, Singapore Branch account number 260-659263-178. Donors must indicate "IRRI CERS-Donation for Typhoon Ondoy" as invoice title. For queries, kindly send an email to Chat Ocampo.

MANILA - A local scientist who helped discover a snail toxin a thousand times more powerful than morphine, was chosen as the first Filipino winner of the 2010 L'oréal-UNESCO "For Women In Science Awards."

Dr. Lourdes Jansuy Cruz, 67, a National Scientist based at the University of the Philippines- Diliman, was recognized for her role in discovering Conotoxins (or toxins from marine snails) during the 1970s to 80s.

Cruz was directly involved in isolating peptides (a chain of amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins) from the venom of Conus (cone) snails found in the Philippines.

One of these peptides was developed by U.S. biotechnology firm Cognetix Corp. (later bought by Elan Pharmaceuticals) to produce the non-addictive drug Prialt Ziconotodine (or primary alternative to morphine).

"It's very potent, and it does not have the side-effects of morphine [like drowsiness, light headedness, euphoria, dry mouth, and fatigue]," Cruz told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak in an interview. Full story

View news and features of the past week and earlier about rice from Web sites worldwide. The story database containing more than 4,550 articles is now searchable going back to 4 August 2005 and has been improved with new useful categories and organization. Give it a try!

• Asia facing a major rice shortage
• Thai princess on 4-day visit in Philippines including IRRI
• Thai princess to visit Manila and IRRI
• No panic, but rice price pressure building: IRRI
• Australia: Rice seen as ideal fit for CQ irrigated crop rotation
• Technology holds answer for Asia's future challenge
• Philippines makes biggest ever rice tender
• And much more!

Click here to access a listing of more than 280 newspaper and magazine articles and features, audio and video clips, and external Web sites over the past year, which feature IRRI staff and rice research.

Special Seminar | Wednesday, 18 November, 3-4 P.M., Eagle Room, IRRI Training Center
The senior manager’s role in achieving the objectives of the Training Center
By Eugenio Castro, candidate for senior research manager, IRRI Training Center

More than 100 past Thursday and other special seminars (since 26 May 2005) have been archived here. PowerPoint files are included for all of these seminars, with audio files to follow along with available for most of them. (The K: drive is for internal access only and is sometimes offline.)

Read "The problem with PowerPoint" on BBC Web site

IDRW update. The LDS staff is updating its online directory of rice scientists, the International Directory of Rice Workers, which is available at the LDS Web site. For your name to be added in this Directory or to update your information, kindly save and fill in the form here and send to j.dejesus@cgiar.org or mila.ramos@cgiar.org.

New books of popular interest

Table of contents alerts

Useful Web resources

PDF of everything above, including a list of new publications by IRRI staff and rice literature alerts

LIBRARY HOURS: Mondays to Fridays, 8 a.m.-12nn, 1-5 p.m.

 
6th International Rice Genetics Symposium
Ongoing this week! 16-19 November 2009, Manila, Philippines

The International Rice Genetics Symposium, now in its 6th version, is one of the world’s biggest and most important rice research conferences. Adding to its scope and significance, this event will be held in conjunction with the 7th International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics. The 4-day event, under the patronage of HRH Princess Sirindhorn of Thailand, builds on the excitement generated by rapid advances in rice genomics and its potential benefits to food security and the international rice industry. More than 700 top international scientists and researchers from around the world are expected to attend. Web site

IRRI delegation: Those submitting for poster presentation, please use the template (download below) and fill up the additional columns in purple. Submit the completed template to Elma Nicolas on or before 11 September 2009. Template for RG6 IRRI registration and poster submission

United Nations Climate Change Conference

7-18 December 2009, Copenhagen

The COP15 conference is the 15th Conference of the Parties under the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention. The conference will take place in the Bella Center in Copenhagen. Web site

GRAPAS 2010 (new international conference for the grain industries in the Asia Pacific)
3 March 2010, Bangkok, Thailand

The GRAPAS Conference is a new event to be held in 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand, in association with the GRAPAS Asia trade show, part of Victam Asia 2010. GRAPAS has been created to cater to the needs of the flour milling, grain processing, handling, and distribution industries throughout the Asia Pacific region. From rice milling to noodle production, wheat flour to speciality grains, GRAPAS will be the region's premier specialist event. More info

Africa Rice Congress 2010
22-26 March 2010, Bamako, Mali

Africa Rice Congress 2010 will have as its main theme, Innovation and partnerships to realize Africa’s rice potential. It will bring together representatives from the public and private sector, civil society organizations, farmer associations, and research and extension communities engaged in the development of Africa’s rice sector. ARC 2010 will be organized by the Africa Rice Center, in collaboration with the Malian Agricultural Research Institute (Institut d’économie rurale) and the International Rice Research Institute, under the distinguished patronage of the Malian authorities. Web site

View all conferences/symposia

15 November: 1991, M.S. Swaminathan (photo right), former IRRI director general, is awarded the 1991 Honda Prize in Tokyo; 2001, Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong visits IRRI.

16 November: 1996, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori visits IRRI; 2006, Rice production in Southeast Asia, arguably the region’s most important industry, receives a major boost with the endorsement of three new strategies by the agricultural ministers of the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Implemented and coordinated by IRRI, the new measures are aimed at three major challenges facing rice production in ASEAN

17 November: 2000, to mark the 40 years of strong partnership between the Institute and Thailand, the IRRI Liaison Office in Bangkok sponsors and kicks off 2 days of events in the country.

18 November: 2004, in celebration of the International Year of Rice 2004, Host Country Day held at IRRI attracts approximately 125 officials from various branches of the Philippine Government.

19 November: 2005, More than 700 rice scientists and researchers from 20 countries arrive for the 5-day 5th International Rice Genetics Symposium at the Edsa Shangri-La hotel in Manila, which is the largest scientific meeting that IRRI has ever hosted in the Philippines. Click here to access information about obtaining the e-Proceedings.

21 November: 2000, The Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) in Phnom Penh is inaugurated, which is the fruit of many years of work involving the Cambodia-IRRI-Australia project (CIAP).

Click here to view more significant dates in November and throughout the calendar year. If you have some dates to add or correct, please contact Gene Hettel.