Rehovot, Israel, and Montpellier,
France
July 24, 2007
Evogene Ltd., a publicly quoted plant biotechnology company
(TASE: EVGN) and CIRAD, a
French scientific organization, announce the expansion of their
multi-year collaboration signed in 2004. The goal of the new
project is to introduce Evogene’s candidate gene, EVO133, into
cotton and to validate it’s improvement for drought tolerance.
Cotton is the third largest genetically modified crop by its
importance, after soybean and corn, and provides 40% of the
global fiber requirements. Cotton is grown on about 35 million
hectares worldwide, 10 million hectares (28%) of which are grown
with GM varieties. Cotton is largely grown in marginal
agricultural areas where precipitations are low and drought
resistance is often the first limiting factor for yield. Drought
resistance is one of the key factors which can help dry areas
stay competitive in the global cotton market.
EVO133 is Evogene's candidate gene for yield, and yield
stability under drought, heat and salinity conditions. EVO133
has been tested in three seasons of field trials in processing
tomato varieties and has demonstrated its potential to increase
yield under normal conditions, reduce yield penalty under
drought conditions as well as under salinity and heat stresses.
The validation of EVO133 is also advancing in other target crops
under other collaborations, which have been announced publicly,
namely in Corn with Biogemma and Soybean with Mertec.
Ofer Haviv, Evogene President and CEO stated: "Having identified
EVO133 as a candidate for yield and yield stability, we are
excited to advance towards obtaining promising results in the
cotton crop. CIRAD's decades of experience in developing cotton
varieties around the globe, makes it a very attractive partner
for this project".
Bernard Hau, Head of the CIRAD Cotton Research Unit stated: “The
search for rustic varieties resisting to drought corresponds to
the demand of the developing countries and its importance will
increase with climate change. CIRAD is pleased to have
established a partnership with the Israeli company EVOGENE, a
partner offering new tools to efficiently address this theme.
Part of this project is financed by the EUREKA initiative
through the French National Agency for Research (ANR).”
CIRAD, the “Centre de coopération internationale en recherche
agronomique pour le développement”, is the French Agricultural
Research Centre for international Development. Its mission is to
contribute to the economic development of the tropical and
subtropical regions through research on agriculture, training,
and dissemination of its results. It employs 1,850 people,
including 950 senior staff, working in French overseas
departments and some fifty other countries. Its budget amounts
to approximately 180 million Euros. CIRAD has three research
departments: The Biological Systems Department, the Performance
of Tropical Production and Processing Systems Department and the
Environments and Societies Department. CIRAD operates through
its own research centres, collaborating with national
agricultural research systems, universities and international
centres, as well as development projects.
CIRAD runs a Cotton Research Unit with a staff of 40 including
30 researchers and 10 technicians, in Africa, the Americas,
South East Asia and Montpellier, France.
Evogene’s mission is to be a world leader in delivering improved
plant traits to the agro-biotechnology and Biofuel industries
through the use of a continuously improving proprietary platform
that combines state-of-the-art computational genomics, molecular
biology and advanced breeding methods. Evogene’s current product
development portfolio includes such traits as: abiotic stress
tolerance and yield, enhancement of cotton fiber quality,
improving nitrogen use efficiency, increasing oil yield for the
BioDiesel industry and plant manufacturing of therapeutic
proteins. Evogene was created in 2002 as a spin-off of the
agro-biotechnology division of Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN).
Evogene’s core in-silico technology, the ATHLETE, is based on
Compugen’s proprietary LEADS computational platform. Evogene
completed an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in June 2007.
|
El algodón tolerará la
sequía |
Source:
Agro-Bio Bio-boletin 66
Dos grandes empresas unieron sus esfuerzos con el
objetivo de crear algodón genéticamente modificado o
transgénico resistente a la sequía. La empresa de
biotecnología israelita Evogene y la organización de
investigación agraria de Francia para países en
desarrollo CIRAD (Centre de coopération
internationale en recherche agronomique pour le
développement), anunciaron recientemente el acuerdo.
La principal herramienta a emplear para obtener este
algodón es la inserción de un gen denominado EVO133
que ya ha demostrado un gran potencial para inducir
resistencia a la sequía en plantas de tomate.
Actualmente también se están realizando ensayos de
plantas de maíz y soya genéticamente modificadas con
este mismo gen, los cuales son liderados por la
empresa francesa Biogemma, del grupo Limagrain y la
norteamericana Mertec LLC.
El algodón, según informó Evogene, es sembrado en 35
millones de hectáreas en todo el mundo, de las
cuales 10 millones son de variedades genéticamente
modificadas. Así mismo, la empresa indicó que la
sequía es un factor relevante en la siembra de
algodón, teniendo en cuenta que la mayoría de los
cultivos se ven afectados por este problema y lograr
variedades resistentes es una llave que podrá ayudar
a cultivar en áreas secas, contribuyendo así a que
países con regiones con estas características,
puedan competir en el mercado global de algodón.
Bernard Hau, Director del Centro de Investigación de
Algodón en Estados Unidos, CIRAD, aseguró que “la
investigación de variedades resistentes a la sequía
corresponde a la demanda de países en vías de
desarrollo y la importancia crecerá cuando el clima
continúe cambiando. Por esta razón CIRAD esta muy
satisfecho con el acuerdo de trabajo conjunto con
EVOGENE, un compañero que ofrece nuevas herramientas
en este tema”, indicó. |
Other news
from CIRAD |
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