First FABI research paper in NATURE!
We congratulate Prof Zander Myburg and several other members of the FMG (Forest Molecular Genetics) Research Group in FABI with the publication of the first full research article from FABI to appear in the prestigious journal Nature. Eucalyptus grandis is one of the most widely planted commercial forestry crops globally and is grown mainly for timber, pulp and paper production, but increasingly also for “chemical cellulose” – a form of pure cellulose that is used in a wide variety of industrial products from textiles to pharmaceuticals. The project to sequence the Eucalyptus grandis genome involved 80 researchers from 30 institutions across 18 countries. South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), together with forestry companies Sappi and Mondi, supported Prof Myburg and his team by funding the construction of the genome map used as a scaffold for genome assembly, as well as the sequencing of expressed genes used for annotation of the genome. Photo: A Eucalyptus grandis tree and the University of Pretoria authors on the Nature article. Other publications from the FMG group related to the Eucalyptus genome can be viewed here.