Jute genome decoded by Maqsudul Alom

[magic boy]

Jute genome decoded
Golden fibre to become healthy, high yielding, weather-tolerant; Hawaii-based Bangladeshi scientist leads team to landmark discovery

পেঁপের পর রাবার। এবার উন্মোচন করলেন সোনালি আঁশখ্যাত পাটের জীবনরহস্য (জিনোম সিকোয়েন্সিং)। বিশ্বের যে ১৭টি উদ্ভিদের জীবনরহস্য উন্মোচিত হয়েছে, তার তিনটিই এসেছে বাংলাদেশের এই বিজ্ঞানীর হাত ধরে। এতগুলো বড় সাফল্যের নেতৃত্ব দিলেও আগে কখনো কোনো গণমাধ্যমকে সাক্ষাৎকার দেননি বিজ্ঞানী মাকসুদুল আলম।....(প্রথম আলো)

The Daily Star;Thursday, June 17, 2010
Bangladeshi researchers have successfully decoded the jute plant genome opening up a new vista in the development of variety of the world's most adorned biodegradable natural fibre.

Experts said this gene sequencing would help improve the fibre length and quality, including colours and strength; and develop high yielding, saline soil- and pest-tolerant jute varieties through genetic engineering.

With the successful sequencing of jute genome, Bangladesh becomes only the second country after Malaysia, among the developing nations, to achieve such a feat.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made the announcement of Bangladesh's scientific achievement in the parliament yesterday amid cheers and desk thumping by lawmakers.

Researchers from Dhaka University, Bangladesh Jute Research Institute and Software Company DataSoft in collaboration with Centre for Chemical Biology, University of Science, Malaysia and University of Hawaii, USA have decoded the genome.

Bangladeshi scientist Maqsudul Alam, a professor of the University of Hawaii, who earlier decoded the genome of papaya in the US and rubber plant in Malaysia, led from the forefront in sequencing the jute genome...............(more-The Daily Star)

[Imteaz]

Great achievment. He is supposed to be recognized in international arena.

[_Rafi_]

Congratulation Mr. Maqsudul Alom. We are proud of you

[thebest]

congrats Matia Chy for taking the initiative to finance and bring back the scientist.
Congrats to all researchers who have done it

[Rabz]

It is indeed a great news.
Congrats to Maqsudul Alam
We are proud of you.

[bujhee kom]

It is great news! Congratas to Scientist Maqsudul Alom and all the other scientists and researchers who worked on the Jute Jenome project!

[BANFAN]

Originally Posted by thebest
congrats Matia Chy for taking the initiative to finance and bring back the scientist.
Congrats to all researchers who have done it

Sorry for my ignorance, but how does she deserve a thank? The article says:

Researchers from Dhaka University, Bangladesh Jute Research Institute and Software Company DataSoft in collaboration with Centre for Chemical Biology, University of Science, Malaysia and University of Hawaii, USA have decoded the genome.

That gives me a feelings that these guys have played a major part, economically and technologically; otherwise we didnt need them. M Alam's past experience, backed by other researchers of DU, Data soft and fund from Matia Chow should have been enough.

But congrats to the team and we needed it and I hope we can benefit from this.

[Naimul_Hd]

really proud of him !! all the best wishes for him and his team for future work !

[Nafi]

Omg, I just had a chemistry exam, where one of the questions was about scientists trying to make Jute more resistant and high yielding. And the question the process of genetic engineering, (I answered it nicely, taking the DNA protein out and placing it in the Jute cells...

[Purbasha T]

Oooh yes, now a Nobel prize

[magic boy]

Originally Posted by BANFAN
Sorry for my ignorance, but how does she deserve a thank? The article says:

It is actually more than just a news. Most of our jute mills went closed. many people lost their livelihood therefore...and their family too. no money, no pension nothing....many students had to stop their education all of a sudden. everything gone with just one notice. And now after this significant achievement by Dr. Alom Govt is thinking of new era of Golden Fibre of Bangladesh. Hopefully they're gonna re-run many of those closed jute mills , thus lot of vastly experienced jute mill workers will get back their job. Begum Matia Chowdhuri being the minster of agriculture creating a new hope for those people. She's giving every kind of benefit to the researcher of that project. She has announced new salary scale+ pension + extra advantages for them in a press briefing with Dr. Maqsudul Alom.

[bujhee kom]

Thank you thebest -Shakil bhaiya and Magic-boy Emon bhaiya for explaining and telling us about the funding and and the support from the minister Motiya Chowdhury. I wouldn't have known otherwise.

Salute Hon. Minister Motiya Chodhury for your work and initiative to bring back the scientists back to their land.

[ialbd]

congratulations to Maqsudul Alam for this fascinating work, and it was really inspiring to learn how our government saw the potential and funded this.... certainly inspiring for other researchers out there in Bangladesh...

we just have so much potential in Agricultural science... there are so much more beyond discovering different breeds of rice...

[SMHasan]

Hmm...

I Have been working with DataSoft and have been overseeing this project's IT infrastructure. I feel good that a company as done something big with a bit of a help from me.

We can dream that this nation can do something even bigger than this.

[BANFAN]

Originally Posted by magic boy
It is actually more than just a news. Most of our jute mills went closed. many people lost their livelihood therefore...and their family too. no money, no pension nothing....many students had to stop their education all of a sudden. everything gone with just one notice. And now after this significant achievement by Dr. Alom Govt is thinking of new era of Golden Fibre of Bangladesh. Hopefully they're gonna re-run many of those closed jute mills , thus lot of vastly experienced jute mill workers will get back their job. Begum Matia Chowdhuri being the minster of agriculture creating a new hope for those people. She's giving every kind of benefit to the researcher of that project. She has announced new salary scale+ pension + extra advantages for them in a press briefing with Dr. Maqsudul Alom.

Thanks a lot. Didn't know all these. But as a whole the picture of Jute sector was quiet bleak in BD.

Has she announced all those incentives after the achievement or before?

[ammark]

Very great achievement.

But my question is how much world demand exists for Jute, and as a traded commodity what is its price like in this day and age?

Jute was another one of those natural products that third-world countries specialised in and then mismanaged, in a global environment where its usefulness fell drastically over the years.

[bujhee kom]

Yes, my question to Dr. Maqsudul Alom, Salaam Dr. I am big fan of yours!

Can you now decode the Cannabis/Hemp genome? That will be good. Thank you.
Also if you succeed/do, please explain what benifit might there be for mankind from this?
Is this Genome technology make the crops grow more + faster and thus the product price comes down in the market, please tell us.
Are you selling this genome machine? Do you have a website?

[PoorFan]

Originally Posted by ammark
Very great achievement.

But my question is how much world demand exists for Jute, and as a traded commodity what is its price like in this day and age?

Jute was another one of those natural products that third-world countries specialised in and then mismanaged, in a global environment where its usefulness fell drastically over the years.

Not sure about the scale of demand yet, but saw Japanese TV report that major car manufacturer looking for new fiber for seats and internal design which is echo friendly, cheap and jute was one of their top target [as that report said more than a year ago]. So jute market in world can boost again if proper research, development [genetic], marketing being made in the line of echo friendly product I hope.

[Zeeshan]

Congrats!

Originally Posted by bujhee kom
Yes, my question to Dr. Maqsudul Alom, Salaam Dr. I am big fan of yours!

Can you now decode the Cannabis/Hemp genome? That will be good. Thank you.
Also if you succeed/do, please explain what benifit might there be for mankind from this?
Is this Genome technology make the crops grow more + faster and thus the product price comes down in the market, please tell us.
Are you selling this genome machine? Do you have a website?

Lol

[Blah]

Few notes and some opinions.

- India produces almost ~3 times more jute than Bangladesh, even though bangladesh has a larger land mass and suitable climate (monsoon) for Jute production.

- Which bring the obvious question is why does India produce more jutes than bangladesh, when Bd has a much suitable climate (over large area) for it? My personal hypothesis is that jute production in BD (like most other things in BD) is disorganized and unoptimized. I have an indian friend whose family owns large agriculture business, but not jute. He told me that agriculture is a very organized business institution in India where the government goes out of their way to make sure that farmers get all the help they want. Another reason could be that their government is more proactive and able to get more business in this sector than bangladesh. One thing to note that its not because India is a bigger country than bangladesh, you can't grow jute anywhere (yet) you want. You need very specific environment (certain temperature and humidity) to grow jute.

- Finally decoding jute genome is not a good thing for Bangladesh or India in the long run. Sure, since BD and India already has a market they will be the first to exploit whatever benefits optimized strains of jute brings in the short term. But in the long term, it means scientists will be able to remove whatever environmental pre-requisites jutes requires to grow. In the future you will be able to grow Jutes anywhere.

If you can grow jutes anywhere, how does that give bangladesh a competitive advantage? If there is indeed an uncapped jute market (I have no idea) then china will be the first to tap on the market when they get their hands on optimized strains, they are already the third largest jute producers (but quite a bit far from India or BD, due to weather conditions). Since China has a better infrastructure than both India and BD they will get a lot more business, assuming there is a big enough market.

The only way this can turn out to be good for bangladesh is if we quickly (exclusively) churn out high quality custom strains of jute before anyone else. AFAIK, you can't patent gnomes, what you can do is patent the modified jutes strains (like Monsanto does with Genetically Engineered seeds and herbicides). If BD can be the first to patent such high-quality strains then they can either decide to exclusively use such strains or sell them or even licence them to other countries at premium rate.

tl;dr Bad news for BD, they need to act fast and produce (and patent) high quality strains before anyone else.

[SportsGuru]

Yeah I have also heard about the Japanese car manufacturing company who seeks some fiber. It would indeed be a good news if it happens that you succeed. Best of luck Dr.! I would love to watch some new stuff on it as am already fed up of watching sport news and cricket news channels.