P R E S S   R E L E A S E

Harvesting on the combined efforts of traditional breeding techniques and state-of-the-art biotechnology, Chinese scientists from the University Grants Committee Area of Excellence on Plant and Fungal Biotechnology Centre at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Centre and Washington State University in the U.S.A. are collaborating on an enhancement programme of the Chinese hybrid rice for the 21st Century.

Coined by scientific and agricultural communities worldwide as the "father of hybrid rice", Professor Longping Yuan will visit The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2-5 July 2001.  In addition to deliver public speeches to introduce the recent developments of Chinese hybrid rice as Wei Lun Visiting Professor, Professor Yuan will expedite and further materialize the captioned research collaboration.

Professor Yuan is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Director of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Centre.  Beginning in the 60s, Professor Yuan has been using hybridization techniques to improve rice production.  To recognize his prominent contributions to World's food production and agricultural sciences, Professor Yuan received numerous awards and prizes including the prestigious "Nikkei Asia Prizes" and became the first-time winner of the China National Top Scientific Technology Award last year.

Rice provides the major source of food for half of the World's population.  The development of hybrid rice, as hybrid corn, largely increased its productivity.  Currently, hybrid rice occupies about half of the total rice cultivation areas in China and its yield accounts for 57% of the total rice production.  Chinese hybrid rice developed by Professor Yuan is able to produce in average 20% more crop than normal, as a result 100 million people can benefit per year.  The market value of Chinese hybrid rice is 100 billion yuan (HK$ 93.9 billion).

In order to further increase the yield of hybrid rice as well as enhancing its quality and stress tolerance, Professor Yuan is conducting a research collaboration with Professor Samuel Sun and Professor Hon-Ming Lam of the Department of Biology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Professor Maurice Ku of the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University.  With the help of advanced biotechnology and recent progress in the decoding of rice genome, together with traditional breeding techniques, the collaborating team aims to develop enhanced Chinese hybrid rice for the 21st Century.  Using traditional techniques, Professor Yuan anticipates a 10% to 15% increase in the yield of the next generation super-hybrid rice over the current Chinese hybrid rice.  Biotechnology is expected to deliver a further boost of 10% increase in the yield.

Since his successful cloning of the world's first plant gene in 1980, Professor Sun has been actively involved in crop improvement programs using biotechnology.  His contributions to quality and nutritional improvement are internationally recognized.  Professor Ku is an expert in photosynthesis regulation.  In 2000, he reported the successful transformation of a major photosynthetic gene from maize into rice.  The photosynthetic capacity and yield of the transformed rice were increased up to 30%.  With a good comprehension of advanced knowledge and techniques of biological sciences, Professor Lam's researches are specializing in metabolic engineering of nitrogen assimilation and molecular mechanism of stress tolerance, processes that are closely related to plant growth and development.

Extended beyond a major international collaborated project involving Chinese scientists from China, Hong Kong and U.S.A. using combined key technologies, this team signifies a new alliance between traditional breeders and molecular biologists as well as the synergy between new and old technologies.  This new trend of research will serve to provide technology reserves and secure quality food supply to China and other parts of the world in the 21st Century.