The Hakubi Project

Our life depends on many kinds of crops which have been improved by human for more than ten thousand years. Recent development of genome science revealed that crop species have lost their genetic diversity during the process of the improvement. This also showed that there might be non-used valuable genes in the relatives of crops. In this seminar, I will explain the process of change of the genome during the crop improvement. Then I will show my recent research about the genetic problem called reproductive barriers which occur when we use genes of the crop relatives. Also I would like to talk ideas about overcoming these problems.