For the first time, a team of scientists, led by a UC Davis geneticist, has genetically engineered disease resistance into rice -- the staple food for more than half the world's population. "We've succeeded in isolating a gene that confers resistance to a species of the bacterial blight pathogen," says Pamela Ronald, an assistant professor of plant pathology and the study's principal investigator. "Bacterial blight is probably the worst bacterial plant disease in the world, infecting virtually every crop species." While three species of crop plants already have been genetically engineered to ward off diseases, this is the first engineering of disease resistance in the large group of plants known as monocots, which includes such important food crops as rice, wheat and corn. Hoping that this newly discovered resistance gene will be important in other crops, Ronald is already working to transfer it into walnuts and tomatoes. Findings from this study were reported in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science.