Mardi Offers New Technology For Plant And Animal Breeding

By Jenny Imanina Lanong Abdullah KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 (Bernama) -- Crops and domesticated animals that provide high yield, resistant to diseases and that could withstand changing weather patterns are pertinent in developing the nation's agricultural sector. Nowadays, the task of coming up with such crops and animals are made easier by the developments in the field of genetics, where crops and animals can be selected genetically to meet the requirements. In Malaysia, the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) has been in the forefront of plant genetics and has succeeded in coming up with crop variants that are more productive. In extending its know-how and assets to other related organisations, MARDI has setup the Centre for Molecular Marker Discovery and Validation (CMDV) at the institute's Biotechnology Research Centre in Serdang. The CMDV may sound too technical for the average person but in a nutshell it provideds the technology to select the wanted genes that could help Malaysia in attaining food security and enhance the output of commercial crops like oil palm and rubber. ONE BIG LEAP FOR MALAYSIA MARDI's Director-General Dr Abd Shukor Abd Rahman said, the CMDV that is the outcome from the cooperation among MARDI, BiotechCorp and DNA Landmark Inc. of Canada is to set a new technological benchmark in improving commercial crops and animals. The CMDV centre is set to play an important role in creating new variants of crops and animals fast and efficiently using the DNA markers to choose the desired traits. This is different from the conventional breeding method where the plants and animals are chosen for breeding by observing their desirable traits that are visible (phenotype). "Mardi was chosen as the custodian of this technology because of its extensive experience in the field of molecular markers and agricultural genomic and the CMDV centre is open to public and private institutions in the related fields. CMDV TO HELP ATTAIN SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION As CMDV could contribute significantly to the nation's aspirations, thus it is not surprising that CMDV is one of the five sub clusters that serve as an enabler of EPP14 under the Economic Transformation Programme. So far breeding activities have been using mainly conventional methods, low focus on research and technology for improvement but under EPP14 targets have been set to produce high-quality seeds/ breeding material developed by Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) technology by 2015. The RM13.35 million (US$4.3 million) CMDV lab that took one and a half years to complete also provides DNA fingerprinting for selected crops and farm animals. Dr Abd Shukor noted that the state of the art lab could analyse animal and plant DNA with great accuracy and in big numbers, extracting up to 1000 DNA samples per day. CMDV THE WAY FORWARD Dr Abd Shukor noted that in enhancing the expertise, seven of MARDI's scientists have joined a three month training stint with DNA Landmark in Canada. "Each of the scientist have their own specialization - plant molecular biology, animal molecular biology, plant and animal breeding and bioinformatics," he said. MARDI, he said, is ready to offer technical services and undertake research and development with the public and private sector in coming up with better plant and animal variants. Dr Abd Shukor added that this technology could greatly contribute in improving the output of the country's agricultural sector and help attain self sustenance in food production. The CMDV Centre was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak last month during BioMalaysia 2011 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC). So far MPOB, JEFI Aquatech Resources Sdn Bhd and Green World Genetics Sdn Bhd (GWG) have signed MoU with MARDI and BiotechCorp to use the CMDV facility. -- BERNAMA