About Us
The Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre (MPB) commenced operations in July 2003. MPB builds on the success of the old CRC for Molecular Plant Breeding, which operated from July 1997 to June 2003.
Objectives
The prime objective of MPB is to ensure the competitiveness of Australian crop and pasture industries, currently worth $18 billion annually, by developing the latest molecular technologies and delivering them to the grain and pasture industries through breeding programs.
Specifically, MPB's objectives are to enhance:
- the contribution of long-term scientific and technological research and innovation to Australia's sustainable economic and social development
- the transfer of research outputs into commercial or other outcomes of economic, environmental or social benefit to Australia
- the value to Australia of graduate researchers
- collaboration among researchers, between researchers and industry, and to improve efficiency in the use of intellectual and other research resources.
The MPB research program will provide enabling intellectual property, new molecular technologies, tools and software to increase the efficiency and speed of plant breeding. The ultimate outcome for industry will be more robust germplasm and varieties - sooner. The education program will deliver trained plant breeders and researchers to meet customer needs. The primary focus of MPB research is on cereals (wheat and barley) and pastures (grasses and clovers).
The technologies developed by MPB will be delivered to market through partnerships between the commercial arm of the Centre, Molecular Plant Breeding Pty Ltd, and diverse commercial participants. Molecular Plant Breeding Pty Ltd has a strong IP position and holds patents in a range of areas in cereals and pastures. The technologies developed by MPB will lead to significant improvements in drought tolerance, salinity tolerance, disease resistance and quality. Delivery of these products will be achieved through the involvement of a number of breeding organisations, seed companies and marketing companies.
MPB will have relationships with various functional genomics groups to provide mutual benefits. The genomics centres will provide access to genes and the technologies for MPB, and MPB will provide a delivery mechanism for the genomics centres.
What is a Cooperative Research Centre?
The Australian Commonwealth Government funds the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program. It was established in 1990 to strengthen collaborative links between industry, research organisations, educational institutions and government agencies. There are currently about 70 CRCs involved in agriculture, the environment, medical science, mining, information and communication and manufacturing.
For more information about the CRC program, visit the CRC Association website at www.crca.asn.au.
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