Peptide signaling in plants: Tremendous amount of attention has been made by the scientific community and the industry sectors to do genomic sequencing, particularly in Arabidopsis thaliana. However, one group of genes encoding small signal protein was generally missed by such genomic sequencing project because of their small ORFs. Recent studies have shown that many of such proteins play critical roles in plant signal transduction and disease resistance.  We are using proteomic approach to carry out high throughput protein identification to hunt for such proteins from Arabidopsis. We expect that the products of most of these genes interact with receptor kinases located at the surface of the cells. 

Plant breeding technology development: F₁ hybrid varieties ensure high uniformity of the product, give high yields due to heterosis, allow the rapid combination of different traits, and provide a natural protection of breeders’ right. The production of hybrid varieties requires homozygous inbred parental lines and reversible male sterility. The complete homozygosity of parental lines ensures uniformity of the F1 hybrid crops, while male sterility facilitate the large-scale hybrid seed production without emasculation.  The aim of the HybTech research is to use molecular approach to bring the reversible male sterility and doubled haploid technology to practice in a wide range of species. For details, go to www.HybTech.org

NutriRice: Aleurone layer and embryo are the most nutritious parts of the rice grain, which is lost completely during milling and polishing. This has caused serious health problem in developing countries where 2 billion people rely on rice as a major nutrient source. By taking genetic approach, we are developing new rice variety whose seeds have loose layer to prevent the loss of aleurone and embryo during milling. This could potentially lead to 600% increase of vitamin B1, 30% proteins, 480% Ca and 180% Fe for consumers. In the last three years, we have established a large EMS mutagenized population.  From this population we have obtained several thousands of phenotypic mutants.  We are developing screening strategies at the moment for obtaining mutants with desired seed structure.