2003 Volume 53 Issue 4 Pages 281-289
The information about heredity which defines every living species is packed in its genome. The discovery of DNA as the material of inheritance and subsequent elucidation of its double helical structure laid the foundation for comprehensive genome analysis, which aims at gaining all the genetic information or sequence of nucleotides of major organisms. Extensive analysis of the rice genome which was initiated in 1991 in Japan has resulted in the production of a large amount of important data with a considerable impact on traditional rice and cereal genetics. This has led to a new direction of rice research and has provided biologists with powerful research tools to reveal the function of all the genes that comprise the rice genome. The new knowledge generated from this endeavor will be very useful for developing novel strategies for rice breeding that will ensure a stable food supply for mankind.
