Genebanks at a crossroads
ML/AI to help speed up genebanks operational processes!
The idea to establish genebanks goes back to more than 50 years ago, some years before the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) which took place in Stockholm in 1972. The emphasis was, at the time, on developmental issues and their negative impacts on the human environment which has helped in the establishment of more genebanks worldwide. The aim was then to save genetic resources from eminent loss due to various development activities.
However there is an urgent need, today, not only to save genetic resources in genebanks but to speed up their utilisation, in particular to adapt to and mitigate climate change. With the current speed of use of these resources we are in a vulnerable position, according to researchers. Covid19 pandemic has shown that vulnerability and unpreparedness can be costly socially and economically.
Previously we used ML/AI in combination of imaging techniques to automate procedures in genebanks and in recent years we are using ML/AI to speed up the utilisation of genetic resources in crop improvement. Researchers today are looking for doubling the number of genebank accessions used in their breeding gene pool to be able to catch up with production.
OperAI can help in both automation and in speeding up processes in the genebanks. OperAI published a book on ML referring to both automation and speeding up of operational processes across sectors.
Some of the work in the book refers to gene discovery to speed up adaptation to climate change. Some of this work appeared in the recent NeurIPS 2021 Conference (https://nips.cc) at:
