Rice With Added Gene Withstands Drought
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Scientists said they had genetically engineered rice to withstand drought, salt water and cold temperatures by borrowing a gene from the Escherichia coli bacteria. The team, at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Seoul National University in South Korea and elsewhere, added to the rice a gene for trehalose, a sugar that helps plants withstand stress.
The researchers believe that corn, wheat, millet, soybeans and sugar cane can also be genetically engineered using trehalose.
