The 21st century is the century of bio-engineering. Advances in bio-engineering in the past 20 years stand out more prominently than those achieved in the entire 20th century, and now, humankind is attempting to artificially manipulate the vital phenomenon. Pharmaceutical and agriculture & life sciences industries rely on bio-engineering technology. The size of bio-engineering technology industry reached billion in 2010, and countries around the world are fiercely competing to take leadership in the rapidly expanding bio-engineering industry.

Molecular breeding is a core area of agriculture & life sciences, where genomes are decrypted,molecular markers are developed (so that the genes can be monitored), and useful genes are transformed and used. Molecular plant breeding is quickly replacing conventional breeding methods (which was referred to as the Green Revolution) and is expected to bring a future where plants are custom-made to the demands of consumers. The Next-generation Bio-green Program conducted by the Rural Development Administration is the national R&D project expected to drive the development of agricultural & life sciences. The Molecular Plant Breeding Center will conduct world-leading research by concentrating the capacities related to molecular plant breeding, and will spearhead the technological research for the promotion of the plant bio-engineering industry. The Center will host seminars and implement public relations programs to help the public understand what plant bio-engineering is and become more interested in this dynamic field.a

Food-borne pathogen Omics Research

Food-borne Pathogen Omics Research is to prevent food poisoning accidents and establish response plans for such outbreaks by securing and accumulating information on genetic substances, transcriptome and meta-genome existing in food that often cause food poisoning. In order to prevent large-scale food poisoning accidents caused by mutated or unknown harmful microbes and to overcome the limits of analyzing the causes of food poisoning through incubation-based existing microbiological testing methods, the Center takes a genome- and metagenome-approach to the analysis of microbes and microbiota contained in major animal and vegetable food that frequently cause food poisoning. At the same time, the Center plans to respond to food poisoning accidents quickly and actively by building a high-quality database based on the information related to the metagenome, genome and transcriptome of food poisoning bacilli contained in animal and vegetable food that are the most common culprits behind food poisoning.