Called the 5th International Rice Genetics Symposium (RG5), it is the first major rice research conference to be held after the historic final sequencing of the rice genome earlier this year. Organizers had predicted about 500 delegates from more than 20 countries, explaining the higher than expected number by the excitement generated by the sequencing of the rice genome and what it means for the international rice industry.

"We really are at the dawn of an exciting new era in rice research," the chairman of the RG5 organizing committee, Dr. David Mackill, said. "The unprecedented levels of global interest in the conference are clear evidence of this."

Some of the most exciting new research to be presented at the symposium will include:

1. The latest on new, more nutritious varieties of rice that are set to have a major impact on the health and well-being of Asian and Filipino rice consumers.

2. The development of new rice varieties that will allow Filipino rice farmers to grow rice in more difficult conditions such as drought or poor soil.

3. A better understanding of how the rice plant works, especially why it tastes, smells and yields the way it does, via the new science of functional genomics.

4. The latest on new technologies such as hybrid rice.

Dr. Mackill said the conference would also be an unprecedented opportunity for Filipino researchers and scientists to learn and study first hand the very latest in rice research. "The conference has attracted many world-class scientists who are recognized leaders in their respective fields, so it is a great opportunity for local scientists to get access to new knowledge and information that otherwise may have been more remote or even inaccessible.

"We are very hopeful that this event will give an important boost to the local rice industry and research community, Dr. Mackill added. "And, we’re especially pleased that we are able to organize such a major international conference in support of National Rice Awareness Month as November was declared last year by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo."

This is the fifth international rice genetics symposium in a series of symposia held by IRRI every five years. The first symposium held in 1985 led to the birth of the Rice Genetics Cooperative (RGC) for promoting international collaboration. The same year, the Rockefeller Foundation established the International Program on Rice Biotechnology, which has played a major role in advancing the frontiers of knowledge on cellular and molecular genetics of rice, international collaboration and human resource development.

In the second symposium, a unified system of numbering rice chromosomes and linkage groups was adopted.