A global group of scientists have reduced the time it takes to find and introduce disease-resistance

A global group of scientists have reduced the time it takes to find and introduce disease-resistance genes from wild plants into domestic crops such as rice, wheat and potato, a research revealed on Tuesday.
Scientists from the John Innes Center in Britain, along with colleagues from Australia and the United States, have created a database known as AgRenSeq, where researchers can easily search for resistance genes already discovered in wild relatives of modern crops.
The study was co-authored by a global expert Professor HarbansBariana from the University of Sydney, who said that this technology will support the discovery and characterization of new sources of disease resistance in plants. Once researchers have identified resistance genes using AgRenSeq, they can clone them and introduce them to domestic crops to protect against diseases and pests,
“We have found a way to scan the genome(基因组)of a wild relative of a crop plant and pick out the resistance genes we need and we can do it in record time,” Dr. Brande Wulff, a project leader from the John Innes Centre, said.
“This used to be a process that took l0 Or 15 years and was like searching for a needle in a haystack(干草堆)” Wulff said. “We have perfected the method so that we can clone these genes in a matter of months and for just thousands of dollars instead of millions.”
The team are highly optimistic about their work, predicting it to be utilized in protecting many crops with wild relatives including soybeans, pea, cotton, potato, wheat, rice, banana and cocoa. “Using speed cloning and speed breeding we could deliver resistance genes into the best varieties within a couple of years, like a phoenix(凤凰) rising from the ashes,” Wulff added.
12. How have the researchers developed the resistance genes?
A. By reducing the research time.
B. By introducing them to wild plants.
C. By cloning them from domestic crops.
D. By getting resistance genes from wild plants.
13. What will be the use of the study in the future?
A. It will protect crops from being damaged by pests.
B. It will create a database for researchers to search.
C. It will protect domestic crops for 10 to 15 years.
D. It will contribute to reducing the wild plants.
14. Which of the following best explains “utilized” underlined in Paragraph 6?
A. Produced. B. Made.
C. Used. D. Studied.
15. What can we infer from what Brande Wulff said?
A. The resistance genes cost millions of dollars.
B. The resistance genes were found in a haystack.
C. It took the researchers ten years to find the resistance genes.
D. Disease-resistance genes will be put into practice soon.
【答案】