Man, the Creator.docVIP

Man, the CreatorOn January 1， the New Plant Variety Protection Office of China’s Ministry of Agriculture issued “birth certificates” to two new plant species， Bioroad Pearl 18 and Bioroad Pearl 216， which were created by hybridizing the chromosomes of pea and corn. The achievements are just two among those Chinese scientists can lay claim to as the nation establishes itself as a pioneer in chromosome hybridization technology.The family treeIn the past， claims of crossbreeding between two species from such distant plant families would have been met with ridicule. A widely accepted maxim is that distant hybridization will always cause sterility. However， Chinese scientist Zhu Peikun， founder and chief scientist of Shenzhen Bioroad Biotechnology Co. Ltd. in Shenzhen， south China’s Guangdong Province， has proved this to be false.At the end of 2014， experts from Shanghaibased Fudan University and Hong Kong University proved that pea and corn had indeed been successfully crossbred into a new crop variety after conducting an immunoelectrophoresis analysis of Bioroad’s samples. That signified the official dawning of a new era in which man can modify any graminaceous crop.Fluorescence imaging photos of in situ chromosome hybridization between pea and corn clearly showed that the chromosomes of the two crops have been brought together to produce a new chromosome type.Zhu， the forerunner of plant chromosome hybridization theory， began his research in this field in 1982. In the beginning， he wanted to crossbreed cole and garlic， which are also distantly related. He hoped to protect cole from aphids by giving them the smell of garlic.After graduating from the Department of Biology of Fudan University， he went to teach at his alma mater. Since 1986， he had conducted research in the University of Minnesota in the United States and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He returned to China in 2001. In that year， he made a breakthrough in chromosome hybridization by cr