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Dept. of Agricultural Biotechnology

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