RICE last week became the first crop plant to have its genome completely
sequenced, an achievement that promises to unlock the genetic secrets of all
major cereal crops. But the companies responsible will not make the sequence
freely available on the Internet or in a scientific journal, a decision that has
caused concern among academics.
鈥淭his will rank as one of the great achievements of the genomics era,鈥� says
Peter Meldrum, president of Myriad Genetics, which did the sequencing in Salt
Lake City, Utah. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the first agriculturally important crop to be sequenced,
and it nourishes half the world鈥檚 population.鈥�
Syngenta, a Basel-based multinational, managed and funded the project. But
both companies are guarding their data closely. Academics are free to ask
specific questions, says Steve Briggs, of Syngenta鈥檚 Torrey Mesa Research
Institute in La Jolla, California, who headed the project. 鈥淏ut we do require
that if there are inventions from collaborations, we are given a chance to
license them first. We won鈥檛 seek to patent the rice genome, but we will protect
inventions which are marketable,鈥� he says.
Advertisement
However, plant geneticist Ottoline Leyser of the University of York says:
鈥淚鈥檓 concerned about the monopoly on information that might develop if publicly
funded access to the information is restricted.鈥� Leyser is a member of an
international consortium of government-funded labs that announced just weeks ago
that they鈥檇 sequenced the first plant, a weed called Arabidopsis thaliana
(快猫短视频, 16 December 2000, p 14).
Rice has the smallest genome of all cereals, with 50,000 genes on 12
chromosomes. This makes it a kind of Rosetta Stone for investigating genes in
other cereals. 鈥淚t provides an immediate understanding of wheat, corn, barley
and other cereals,鈥� says Briggs.
Syngenta and Myriad have agreed to help develop new crops for subsistence
farmers. 鈥淲e will come up with varieties adaptable to local conditions . . . and
it will be conducted in a manner that will be royalty and licence-free,鈥� says
David Evans, head of research at Syngenta.
But pressure is growing to speed up a publicly funded effort to sequence
rice, so that everyone can get access to the data. Such a project is already
gathering steam in Japan, China and other Far Eastern countries. Otherwise,
Leyser fears that much of Syngenta鈥檚 data will just gather dust. 鈥淭hey can only
exploit a tiny amount of it. The rest is sitting there doing nothing,鈥� she
says.
Gurdev Khush of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines
agrees. Using Myriad鈥檚 sequence will cost time and money, he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚
therefore imperative that the publicly funded project continues so it鈥檚
available to all.鈥�