Business

Thursday May 14, 2009

Sime’s genome success a tough act to follow

By HANIM ADNAN


MPOB and other companies yet to achieve similar breakthrough

PETALING JAYA: Sime Darby Bhd’s major breakthrough to completely sequence, assemble and annotate the oil palm genome with 93.8% completeness will be a tough act to follow by the palm oil custodian, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and other plantation companies.

Industry consultant M.R. Chandran told StarBiz that MPOB, which pursued similar technology for more than five years, was believed to have achieved about 85% completeness in deciphering oil palm genetics or scientifically known as “sequencing, assembling and annotating the oil palm genome.”

Genome is the scientific term for the blueprint, or set of chromosomes that contains the genetic make-up and associated DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) which form all living things or organisms.

M.R. Chandran ... I believe Sime Darby will be able to get the intellectual property rights and patent

Chandran said: “I believe Sime Darby will be able to get the intellectual property rights and patent for oil palm genome, unless other companies or MPOB managed to attain higher level of completeness sometime this year.”

Todate, Asiatic Development Bhd is the only other plantation company that is working on oil palm and jatropha genomes via its subsidiary Asiatic Centre For Genome Technology Sdn Bhd (ACGT) on a 22ha site in Sepang.

MPOB chairman Datuk Sabri Ahmad said the board was also pushing for the final draft sequence of its oil palm genome by June and plan to complete the assembling and annotation before end-December.

MPOB is working with South Korea’s Macrogen Inc, US-based Orion Genomics LLC and Britain’s Oxford Gene Technology IP Ltd to complete the sequence and apply the research.

Sabri told StarBiz that the board encouraged more plantation companies to get involved with the oil palm genome to boost palm oil yields, better planting materials and generation of new variety of crops.

He said MPOB was also working on genome-related activities with Felda, Applied Agriculture Resources Sdn Bhd, a joint venture between Kuala Lumpur Kepong and Boustead Plantations Bhd for tissue culture and Asiatic’s ACGT.

He said: “The genome technology is important to develop requisite diagnostic tools for identification and characterisation of expression markers of the oil palm mantled abnormality.”

Datuk Sabri Ahmad ... MPOB pushing for the final draft sequence of its oil palm genome by June

MPOB will be setting up a palm genome research facility adjacent to its premise in Bangi with a budget allocation of RM100mil for the next five years to fully sequence the oil palm genome.

Earlier, Chandran said Sime Darby’s genetic engineering technology could help overcome the current limitation of existing conventional oil palm breeding materials done via normal cross breeding or tissue cultures.

Malaysian Estate Owners Association president Boon Weng Siew said while Sime Darby’s breakthrough was good for the industry, he was doubtful that the oil palm genome technology could take off speedily and would not likely meet Malaysia’s targeted palm oil yield of eight tonnes and fresh fruit bunches harvest of 35 tonnes per hectare per year by 2020.

“It will not be an easy feat as replanting are normally carried out on palm trees than are over 25 years old.

“Even now many plantations are undertaking replanting activities.

“I am sure they will be reluctant to chop their newly planted trees to test the new planting materials under the genome technology in the next 10 years,” he added.


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