The Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering voted for the country’s top 10 scientific achievements of 2007, and guess what? In at number 9 is the establishment of a genebank at the Kunming Institute of Botany.
After its completion, the resource bank will include a seed bank, vitro plant germplasm resource bank, DNA bank, and microbial seed bank. It will collect and preserve 190,000 copies (strains) of 19,000 varieties of germplasm resources.
The last genebank that got such press was you know what. No, wait, here’s another! Are genebanks the new black or something?
When I was visiting Kunming last autumn they showed us around the genebank to be and an entirely new building being constructed to house a department for the study of biodiversity. I wasn’t able to get any good photographs, but I was very impressed indeed with the amount being invested. Give it a year or two and I reckon the Kunming genebank will be on a global top 10.