Evolution key to food security, new drug discoveries

Chinese scientists, working with international research institutions, have launched a global project to explore the evolutionary history of plants and unlock genetic resources critical for biodiversity conservation and future food security.

The PLANeT initiative was officially launched recently by more than 40 institutions worldwide, including the Botanical Society of China, Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen.

Plants have evolved over hundreds of millions of years, yet scientists still lack a clear picture of how major plant groups are related, said Wang Li, a researcher at the Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen and one of the project's lead scientists.