On August 17, Dr. Matthew Morrel, Director General of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), with his colleagues Dr. Paul Quick, Chief Scientist of "The International C4 Rice Program", Dr. Guoyou Ye, Senior Scientist and Michelle Wilton, Head of Cooperation and Development Department visited Biotechnology Research Institute (BRI) of CAAS. Dr. Tiegang Lu, Deputy Director-General and scientists from BRI discussed with the IRRI visitors on further strengthening bilateral cooperation on improving photosynthesis efficiency of rice.

Dr. Lu introduced the progress in mutant screening and gene cloning related to photosynthesis in C3 rice, C4 foxtail millet and maize as well as high photosynthesis efficiency materials creation, which have been achieved in BRI, CAAS. Dr. Paul Quick introduced the latest progress in the international C4 rice program carried out in IRRI. Dr. Matthew Morrell expressed the viewpoints for cooperation mechanism, funding application and personnel exchanges. The both parties agree to work closely under the framework of CAAS-IRRI MoU on “Rice Genomics and Germplasm Enhancement”. Functional genomics for crop photosynthesis is one of the four priorities of cooperation.

BRI launched the collaborative innovation project "molecular mechanism of photosynthetic efficiency for major crops and core materials creation" in 2014, which achieved several important progresses including mutant screening and gene cloning for C4-like leaf anatomical structure in rice, bundle sheath cell specific promoter isolation et al. IRRI is leading international C4 rice program, and its C4 rice research was selected as one of ten technological breakthroughs by MIT Technology Review in 2015. The cooperation with IRRI will greatly enhance our research on crop high photosynthetic efficiency.

Scientists from the innovation team of functional genomics of photosynthesis, maize functional genomics and crop molecular breeding attended the meeting.

Matthew Morel, director of International Rice Research Institute, visited BRI-CAAS to promote research cooperation.