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 National research institute focuses on cutting-edge research to improve agriculture's productivity and value by overcoming technological limitations. The department consists of four divisions: Genetics, Metabolic Engineering, Genetic Engineering, and Biosafety.

(1) Genomics Division

Function

• Assembly and annotation of genomes of agricultural crops
• Discovery of useful genes and development of molecular markers for crop improvement
• Establishment of the infrastructure for analyzing agricultural big data

Major Achievement

• Genome sequencing of agricultural organisms (27 Plants, 7 animals, and 6 insects)
  - Carry out the National Agricultural Genome Program (NAGP)
• Establishment of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Information Center (NABIC)
• Genome assembly and annotation of agricultural plants(27), animals(7), and insects(6)
  - National Agricultural Genome Program(NAGP, 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
    • - Public data : 5,081,077 records, 46.4 TB (~2021.9)

• nabic.rda.go.kr
• Service platform
• NABIS HPC

(2) Metabolic Engineering Division

Function

• Investigation of natural products biosynthesis pathways through plant metabolome and production of high value materials by plant metabolic engineering/synthetic biology
• Production of biopharmaceutical proteins by using plant molecular farming systems
• Improvement of agricultural traits using environment control and metabolomics

Major Achievement

• dentification of 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 by using sound wave

• 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

• Establishment of high-throughput plant phenotyping system
• Improvement of agronomic traits by using biotechnology
• Identification of useful genes and development of molecular markers for crop breeding

Major Achievement

• Establishment of high-throughput plant phenotyping system
  - Set up programs for crop phenomics (19 crops)
• Improvement of agronomic traits by using genome editing system
  - Male sterility in tomato, rice bacterial blight resistance, etc.
• Development and application of rice SNP markers
• Discovery of genes related to pathogen defense & drought tolerance
• Development of compact chrysanthemums by using short internode family genes

• High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping System
• Genome editing (rice bacterial blight resistance gene )

• Physical map of developed markers
• Drought tolerant gene
• Compact chrysanthemums

(4) Biosafety Division

Function

• Risk management for researches handling GMOs
• Development of guideline for environmental risk & food safety assessment of GM crops
• Development of technology for GMO monitoring and traceability
• Risk assessment for new breeding technology(genome editing, etc)

Major Achievement

• Establishment & operation of the Institutional Biosafety Committee
  - Management of experiments in confined research facilities (lab, green house) & biologically isolated fields
• Development of guideline 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 guideline 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