biotechnology is a collection of technologies that can be applied to address many challenges in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and medicine. Although many African governments have not totally committed in terms of providing funds for more research,IITA and its partners (AATF, NARS, donors, NGOs) still provide knowledge about these important technology and their possible impact on sub-SAharan Africa.This issue highlights some of the cutting-edge work that IITA and its partners are doing to help find solutions to problems in tropical agriculture through biotechnology, and thus provide more food and improved livelihoods for the millions of people depending on agriculture