(Press-News.org) In a major step toward securing global food supplies and advancing sustainable agriculture, a team of scientists has proposed an integrated framework that combines biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize crop breeding.
Published in Nature on July 24, the review was co-corresponding authored by Prof. GAO Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. LI Guotian of Huazhong Agricultural University, with contributions from additional co-authors including international collaborators.
Facing a rapidly growing global population, intensifying climate change, and shrinking arable land area, ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture is now one of the world's most pressing challenges.
This review explores the integration of multi-omics, genome editing, protein design, and high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) as part of a comprehensive vision for "AI + BT" (biotechnology) integration to genetically improve crops. The authors present a forward-looking framework for AI-assisted crop germplasm design, offering a clear roadmap for the future of sustainable agriculture.
The authors first emphasize the foundational role of modern omics technologies in creating a paradigm shift in crop breeding. They show that advances in genomics, metabolomics, and single-cell omics offer unprecedented insights into the genetic and biological mechanisms influencing crop traits, while revealing precise new targets for trait improvement. They also note that HTP technologies—which leverage drones, sensors, and automation platforms—enable rapid and accurate phenotypic assessments crucial for linking genotypes to phenotypes and identifying valuable genetic variations.
The review also spotlights powerful tools for crop improvement. For example, CRISPR-based genome editing enables efficient and precise genome modification, greatly reducing breeding cycles and enabling the rapid creation and stacking of desirable traits. Meanwhile, AI-driven protein design is emerging as a transformative technology through its capacity to design de novo functional proteins not found in nature. This approach facilitates the development of novel disease-resistance proteins, real-time biosensors for crop monitoring, and custom enzymes for environmental cleanup, thereby endowing crops with transformative traits.
The review particularly focuses on the proposal for an integrative "AI-assisted crop design" model that would use AI to analyze multimodal big data from genomes, phenotypes, environments, and agricultural practices. Breeders would define specific goals—such as increasing yield, enhancing stress tolerance, or improving nutritional quality—while AI would generate optimized, technically actionable breeding strategies through deep learning and knowledge inference. This data-driven approach marks a shift from experience-based breeding to precision design.
The authors also address the challenges ahead. High-quality, standardized data is essential for training robust AI models, and new technologies must comply with biosafety regulations. Encouragingly, global regulatory frameworks for genome-edited crops are evolving toward more scientific and streamlined approaches, paving the way for broader adoption.
This review was supported by the Biological Breeding-National Science and Technology Major Project, the National Key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China and the New Cornerstone Science Foundation.
END
Scientists propose AI-driven biotech model for future crop breeding
2025-07-23
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Collaborative initiative highlights successes and challenges in global bioethics training
2025-07-23
PHILADELPHIA (July 23, 2025) – A new Penn Nursing initiative explores the impact of federally funded international bioethics training programs. The collaborative initiative, published in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, highlights both the significant achievements and ongoing challenges in building bioethics research capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The collaboration, led by Connie M. Ulrich, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Lillian S. Brunner Chair in Medical and Surgical Nursing in Penn Nursing’s Department of Biobehavioral ...
A device developed at the EHU makes it simple to obtain platelet-rich plasma
2025-07-23
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a fraction of blood plasma; its concentration of platelets is of great value in regenerative medicine as they are essential in accelerating healing and repairing tissue. Until now, obtaining them has been based on centrifugation techniques which, in addition to being expensive, could activate the platelets prematurely and reduce their effectiveness.
“We realised that our device not only separated the plasma, but also obtained very high-quality PRP, with functional and minimally activated platelets,” explained ...
Scientists discover brain switch that controls freeze-or-flight survival instincts
2025-07-23
Scientists discover brain switch that controls freeze-or-flight survival instincts
Leuven, Belgium, 23 July 2025 – Researchers have identified a key neural switch that controls whether animals instinctively flee from a threat or freeze in place. By comparing two closely related deer-mouse species, they found that this switch is calibrated by evolution to match the animal's habitat. This neural circuit is hypersensitive in mice living in densely vegetated environments, causing instant escape, but less responsive in their open-field cousins, who are more likely to freeze. In doing so, the research team uncovered an important way in which evolution fine-tunes the brain for survival.
Flee ...
Complex genetic variation revealed in diverse human genomes
2025-07-23
Genome assemblies from 65 individuals, representing a variety of the world’s populations, are advancing the scientific exploration of complex genetic structural variation.
Structural variations are genetic code alterations that span more than 50 base pairs, the rungs on the DNA ladder. These changes were hard to detect until the recent advent of newer sequencing technologies and analytical algorithms, as well as larger collections of more complete, diverse genomes.
Results from the latest work in this area, conducted by the Human Genome Structural Variation Consortium with participants ...
The most complete view of the human genome yet sets new standard for use in precision medicine
2025-07-23
An international team of scientists has decoded some of the most stubborn, overlooked regions of the human genome using complete sequences from 65 individuals across diverse ancestries. The study, published online today in Nature and co-led by The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), reveals how hidden DNA variations that influence everything from digestion and immune response to muscle control—and could explain why certain diseases strike some populations harder than others.
This milestone builds on two foundational studies that reshaped the field of genomics. In 2022, ...
A ‘wonder’ fossil changes our understanding of reptile evolution
2025-07-23
Body coverings such as hair and feathers have played a central role in evolution. They enabled warm-bloodedness by insulating the body, and were used for courtship, display, deterrence of enemies and, in the case of feathers, flight. Their structure is characterised by longer and more complex skin outgrowths that differ significantly from the simple and flat scales of reptiles. Complex skin outgrowths have previously only been observed in mammals in the form of hair and in birds and their closest fossil relatives, dinosaurs and pterosaurs, in the form of feathers. An international team led by palaeontologists Dr Stephan Spiekman and Prof Dr Rainer Schoch from the State ...
Llama antibodies: New therapeutic avenues against schizophrenia
2025-07-23
While current treatments for schizophrenia — a mental illness affecting 1% of the world’s population — can reduce certain symptoms, they have little effect on the cognitive deficits affecting the daily life of patients.
Scientists at the Institute of Functional Genomics (CNRS/Inserm/Université de Montpellier) have just designed a nanobody made from llama antibodies that can specifically activate a glutamate receptor involved in regulating neural activity. Administered peripherally via veins or muscles, this new molecule has demonstrated its capacity to break the blood-brain barrier and effectively reach brain receptors.
The therapeutic effect of these nanobodies ...
The Evolution of escape
2025-07-23
The Best-Laid Plans of Mice
Study shows how evolution sent deer mice scurrying down two different paths of escape
For a mouse, survival often boils down to one urgent question: flee or freeze?
But the best strategy to avoid being snatched and eaten depends on which mouse you are asking. According to a new study by Harvard biologists, two closely-related species of deer mice have evolved very different responses to aerial predators thanks to tweaks in brain circuitry. One species that dwells in densely-vegetated areas instinctively darts for cover while a cousin living in open ...
Newly discovered ‘sixth sense’ links gut microbes to the brain in real time
2025-07-23
by Shantell Kirkendoll
In a breakthrough that reimagines the way the gut and brain communicate, researchers have uncovered what they call a “neurobiotic sense,” a newly identified system that lets the brain respond in real time to signals from microbes living in our gut.
The new research, led by Duke University School of Medicine neuroscientists Diego Bohórquez, PhD, and M. Maya Kaelberer, PhD, and published in Nature, centers on neuropods, tiny sensor cells lining the colon’s epithelium. These cells detect a common microbial protein and send rapid messages to the brain that help curb appetite.
But this ...
Trajectories of physical activity before and after cardiovascular disease events in CARDIA participants
2025-07-23
About The Study: In this cohort and nested case-control study among CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults; a prospective study) participants, moderate to vigorous–intensity physical activity (MVPA) declined from early adulthood to midlife then plateaued, with notable demographic differences; cases experienced steep declines before cardiovascular disease (CVD), and gaps compared to controls persisted afterward. Black women had the lowest MVPA across adulthood and the highest risk of low MVPA post-CVD, underscoring the need to support lifelong physical activity and address group differences.
Corresponding ...