The Department of Agricultural Biotechnology is a leading national research and development institution to develop domestic agricultural biotechnology with state-of-the-art facilities for modern biotechnology. The department's national mission is to establish a national R&D infrastructure for agricultural biotechnology and biotechnology research in order to create a new growth engine for future agriculture in the era of bio-economics. This department focuses on cutting-edge research to improve the productivity and value of agriculture by overcoming technological limitations. The department consists of four divisions: Genomics, Metabolic Engineering, Gene Engineering, and Biosafety.

(1) Genomics Division

Function

• Assembly and annotation of the genomes of agricultural crops
• Discovery of useful genes and development of molecular markers for crop improvement
• Establishment of infrastructure for analyzing agricultural big data
• Leading agricultural data center, integrating and offering advanced analysis of big data for academia, research, and industry.

Major Achievements

• Genome sequencing of agricultural organisms (27 plants, 7 animals, and 6 insects)
  - Carried out the National Agricultural Genome Program (NAGP)
• Established the National Agricultural Biotechnology Information Center (NABIC)
• Completed the National Agricultural Genome Program (NAGP)
  - Genome assembly and annotation of 27 plants, 7 animals, 6 insects (2014 ~ 2021)
  
  
• Establishment of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Information Center (NABIC)
  • Roles (2002 ~)
    • - Bioinformatics service for the agricultural biotechnology research
    • - Integration and management of national agricultural omics big-data
  • System infrastructure and service platform
    • - System infrastructure: 12 servers, 1.6 PB storage, 50 bioinformatics S/W
          ∙ NABIS(High Performance Computer) : CPU 11,040 cores, 14.7 TB memory
          ∙ NABIS2(High Performance Computer) : CPU 69,696 cores, 372 TB memory
    • - Public data : 5,352,748 records, 54.72 TB (~2023.9)
• Launch of the Agricultural Biotechnology Supercomputing Center with a High-Performance-Computer (HPC) system ranked 339th in the world (June 2023)
  

(2) Metabolic Engineering Division

Function

• Investigation of natural product biosynthesis pathways through plant metabolomics and production of high-value materials through plant metabolic engineering/synthetic biology
• Production of biopharmaceutical protein using plant molecular farming systems
• Improvement of agricultural practices using environment control and metabolomics
• Metabolomics research based on agricultural bioresources
• Production of high value-added and functional materials using agro-biotechnology
• Biopharmaceutical protein production through molecular farming

Major Achievements

• Identified allergy-causing genes through analysis of wheat varieties (named “Ofree”) with reduced allergies.
  - novel wheat mutant without four allergen gluten proteins
• Flower color modification through metabolic engineering
  - Flavonoids: chalcones, aurones, flavones, flavonols, anthocyanins
• Production of γ-linolenic acid and stearidonic acid in perilla seeds
• Production of biopharmaceutical protein from alfalfa, rice, and hairy roots
  - tissue Plasminogen Activator (t-PA): prevents the formation of blood clots
• Extension of fruit shelf life and promotion of plant growth using sound waves
• Development of wheat variety ‘Ofree’ with reduced gluten allergen
• Enhanced flower coloring through metabolic engineering
• High accumulation of γ-linolenic acid and stearidonic acid in transgenic perilla seeds
• Production of recombinant Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator (t-PA) protein in rice
• Shelf life extension of fruit and improvement in growth through sound wave treatment

• Allergy-reduced wheat "Ofree"
• Flower color modification

• Lipid biosynthesis modification
• Production of t-PA in rice
• Effect of sound wave on fruit ripening and seed germination

(3) Gene Engineering Division

Function

• Operation of the National Crop Phenomics Center and dissemination of phenomics technology
• Development of biotic and abiotic resistance breeding materials through genome editing
• Identification of useful genes and development of molecular markers for crop breeding

Major Achievements

• Establishment and application of crop phenotyping system based on plant phenomics
  - Development of phenomics technology for measuring seed traits, growth, and drought tolerance
  - Dissemination of phenomics technology through collaborations including the Eureka project
• Designation of the National Crop Phenomics Center as a national standard reference data center by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy of Korea
• Establishment of a rice genome editing population and functional analysis
• Map-based cloning of useful genes and development of selection markers for crop breeding
  - Rice pre-harvest sprouting resistance and bakanae disease resistance markers
• Discovery of genes related to pathogen defense (e.g. rice bacterial blight resistance)

(4) Biosafety Division

Function

• Risk management for research handling GMOs
• Environmental risk & food safety assessment of GM crops
• Development of technology for GMO monitoring and traceability
• Risk assessment for new breeding technology (e.g. genome editing)

Major Achievements

• Establishment & operation of the Institutional Biosafety Committee
  - Management of experiments in confined research facilities (labs, green houses) & biologically isolated fields
• Development of guidelines for environmental risk assessment of GM crops
  - Drought-tolerant rice, nutrient-improved rice, insect-resistant rice, herbicide-tolerant grass, etc.
  - Molecular characterization, evaluation of agronomic traits, and impacts on target & non-target organisms
• Development of guidelines for food safety assessment of GM crops
  - Compositional analysis, toxicity, allergic potential, metabolic profiling, etc.
• Development of detection techniques for GMO monitoring and traceability
  - PCR method (qualitative & quantitative), spectroscopy (near-infrared), etc.

• Institutional Biosafety Committee
• Green house
• Biologically isolated fields

• Environment risk assessment
• Food safety assessment
• GMO detection