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Biologists at Bielefeld University and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics identify the genome sequence of the sugar beet

Success for researchers at Bielefeld University's Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) headed by Professor Dr. Bernd Weisshaar and at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin headed by Dr. Heinz Himmelbauer: They have decoded the genome sequence of the sugar beet. What makes the sugar beet such an interesting case is its only distant relationship to previously decoded plants. This should generate completely new knowledge on plant construction and function.

A grant of three million Euro from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) helped pay for the ultramodern technology needed to unravel this genome sequence that is about one third the size of that of humans. 'This now allows an accelerated and target-directed cultivation of productive, robust, and high-yield varieties of sugar beet', said Annette Schavan, the Federal Minister of Education and Research. 'Ideally, these will be disease-resistant and able to handle environmental and climatic conditions such as heat and drought'.

Nowadays, sugar beets meet about one-third of the global demand for sugar, and Germany is one of the main producers in the European Union. Moreover, Germany is a leading consumer: the expansion of the biotechnological production sector alone has led to a fivefold increase in the German chemical engineering industry's demand for sugar over the last 15 years. Recently, alongside its classical use as feedstock, sugar beat as raw product is gaining increasing attention as a renewable substrate for producing energy in the form of bioethanol and biogas.

Research on the genome sequence of the sugar beet is being performed at the Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) and funded by the BMBF as part of the joint research project 'BeetSeq'  with partners at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin-Dahlem and German sugar beet breeders. With its outstanding national and international competencies in the fields of genomics, bioinformatics. and biotechnology, Bielefeld University is making a major contribution to the success of this and other joint research projects.

For information on the joint research project and the latest publications, go to:
http://bvseq.molgen.mpg.de
At this Internet address, the international research community will also be able to access the first, preliminary version of the genome sequence of sugar beet (labelled 'RefBeet-0.9') from mid-January onwards.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Bernd Weisshaar, Bielefeld University
Faculty of Biology
Telephone: 0521 106-8720
Email: bernd.weisshaar@uni-bielefeld.de

Dr. Heinz Himmelbauer, now at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona, Spain
Ultrasequencing Unit
Telephone: 0034 93 3160243
Email: Heinz.Himmelbauer@crg.es