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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)
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nabic.rda.go.kr
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Service platform
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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
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Allergy-reduced wheat "Ofree"
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Flower color modification
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Lipid biosynthesis modification
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Production of t-PA in rice
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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
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High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping System
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Genome editing (rice bacterial blight resistance gene )
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Physical map of developed markers
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Drought tolerant gene
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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
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Institutional Biosafety Committee
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Green house
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Biologically isolated fields
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Environment risk assessment
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Food safety assessment
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GMO detection