Project highlights and accomplishments
Photo courtesy Dr Nemera Shargie, ARC
Photo courtesy Dr Rachel Chikwamba, CSIR
4A: Technology and research
Charlotte Mienie conducts her work in a DNA Sequencer Lab at the Grain Crops Institute of the Agricultural Research Council, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Dr Maretha O’Kennedy (left) and Dr Rachel Chikwamba analyse ABS experimental results at the CSIR, South Africa.
The Technology and Research component of the ABS Project brings together three of the eight consortium members: • Pioneer Hi-Bred, a subsidiary of DuPont • South Africa’s CSIR • University of California Berkeley Their goal is to develop a transgenic sorghum that contains increased levels of essential nutrients, especially lysine, Vitamin A, and iron and zinc that are more available than in ordinary sorghum varieties. This product will be used by the product development team for introgression of the nutritional traits into the high-yielding and adapted sorghum varieties preferred by the African farmer. To achieve their goal, the three institutions have, in the period under review, focused on specific aspects where each institution has a comparative advantage. They also allowed the flexibility of parallel approaches for the benefit of high throughput, in order to increase chances of success. The accomplishments of the three institutions are outstanding. Some of the highlights include: Capacity building: One of the deliverables of the Technology and Research team was enhancement of African scientists’ capacity. In the first batch of post-doctoral fellows to go to Pioneer Hi_Bred for a year were Dr. Luke Mehlo and Dr Andile Grootboom, both from CSIR. The two scientists are back in their laboratories and currently working on transgenic Vitamin A sorghum lines. During the period under review, the scientists successfully worked on improving the efficiency of transformation. The next group included Dr. Joel Mutisya of Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and Dr Getu Beyene of CSIR. Dr. Mutisya has since returned to KARI and is in charge of the Project activities there. The most recent post-doc to Pioneer is Dr. Kenneth Njuguna Mburu from Kenyatta University.
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The ABS Project mid-term report