Jute Genome project

To bring back the golden era of jute, Bangladesh entered the world of genome research at the end of 2009. As a tripartite combination of the public-private-government partnership, Dhaka University, IT firm DataSoft and Bangladesh Jute Research Institute, the country first time in world decoded the jute genome. On 16 June 2010, the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced at the National Parliament, the success of Bangladeshi scientists.
The research team was led by Professor Maqsudul Alam from University of Hawaii, who also successfully led the genome discovery of papaya in USA and rubber in Malaysia.
After the discovery of jute genome, it becomes a pressing need to have a high yielding jute variety released for cultivation through out the country. With an aim to meet this need and to deliver the benefit of this success directly to the farmer's hand, the next step was taken by the Agriculture Minister, Begum Matia Chowdhury on November, 2010 at the initiative of "Basic and Applied Research on Jute (BARJ)" at Bangladesh Jute Research Institute. One of the main aims of the project is to deliver the disease and stress tolerant, high yielding jute variety to the farmers. Simultaneously, the project also emphasizes to create a platform for genome research with global partnership.
BARJ
Basic & Applied Research on Jute (BARJ) is a government funded scientific research project in Bangladesh with a goal of determining the jute genome sequence of from both physical and functional standpoint. It is a follow-up of the jute genome project to improve the productivity and quality of jute fiber by utilizing genome information.