Call for Papers: Plant Biotechnology, Molecular Breeding, and Food Security

Food security is facing severe challenges as the global population rapidly increases. To meet the food demands of the growing population with limited agricultural land and fresh water resources, greater and more consistent crop production under fluctuating climate conditions, including various environmental stresses, must be achieved by reducing resource inputs and minimizing environmental impacts. Therefore, how to achieve green, high efficiency and sustainable agriculture is a hot topic of research.

With the rapid progress of plant biotechnology, such as marker assisted selection (MAS), genomic selection (GS), transgenic technology/gene modification, haploid induction (HI), gene editing, synthetic biology, molecular design, intelligent breeding, and so on, plant breeding has entered a new era of molecular breeding, which has greatly improved the efficiency of plant breeding. Consequently, important plant traits such as yield, quality, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), and abiotic and biotic resistance have been significantly improved and thus the worldwide food security crisis has been eased to some degree.

In order to summarize and promote the development of plant biotechnology, molecular breeding and their applications in ensuring food security, ACS Agricultural Science & Technology will publish a Special Issue on Plant Biotechnology, Molecular Breeding and Food Security. This Special Issue will broadly cover original research articles, reviews and brief communications along with opinion-style viewpoints in the fields of plant biotechnology, molecular breeding and food security, including recent advances in plant biotechnologies, application cases of molecular breeding, perspectives in sustainable agriculture and food security.

We are highly interested in the following topics but not limited to:

• Advances in plant biotechnology, e.g., gene editing and synthetic biology.
• Plant biotechnology and its applications for sustainable agriculture to address climate changes.
• Plant biotechnology to address abiotic and biotic stresses, increase crop yield, improve food quality, and enhance NUE.
• Cloning and characterization of key genes that can be applied in plant molecular breeding.
• Molecular breeding strategies such as MAS, GS, molecular design, and intelligent breeding and their applications for breeding of green and high-efficiency varieties in plants.
• Future advanced technologies related to plant breeding and field production such as artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning, biosensing and smart agriculture, efficient use of sunlight, factory farming, digital agriculture, and so on.
• Regulatory, economic, societal and policy considerations, and concerns on plant biotechnology, molecular breeding and future advanced technologies and their products for sustainable agriculture and food security as well as food health and safety.

Editors

Xiangyuan Wan
University of Science and Technology Beijing and Associate Editor, ACS Agricultural Science & Technology
Email: xwan@agscitech.acs.org

Laura McConnell
Bayer Crop Science and Deputy Editor, ACS Agricultural Science & Technology
Email: lmcconnell@agscitech.acs.org

Guest Editors

Suowei Wu
University of Science and Technology Beijing and Editorial Advisory Board member, ACS Agricultural Science & Technology
Email: suoweiwu@ustb.edu.cn

Xun Wei
Zhongzhi International Institute of Agricultural Biosciences (Beijing) and Editorial Advisory Board member, ACS Agricultural Science & Technology
Email: weixun@ustb.edu.cn

Submission Instructions

Manuscripts must adhere to the guidelines available on the ACS Agricultural Science & Technology Information for Authors page and must be submitted electronically through ACS Paragon Plus.

In Paragon Plus, specify a manuscript type then select the Plant Biotechnology, Molecular Breeding, and Food Security Special Issue. In addition, state in your cover letter that the paper is being submitted for the special issue.

All invited and contributed manuscripts will be screened for suitability upon submission and undergo the standard peer-review procedure of the journal.

The deadline to send proposals and outlines of manuscripts to the Editors is June 30, 2023. The manuscript submission deadline is September 30, 2023. For more information on the journal and manuscript submission, please visit the journal webpage.