Media advisory issued October 12, 2001, effective immediately.
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Note: This event occurred in 2001. Please see our news releases section for upcoming events.

'Golden Rice' Scientist to Speak at Noble Foundation

Dr. Ingo Potrykus brings his global crusade to Oklahoma to educate the public on the value of gene modification research

ARDMORE, Okla. (October 12, 2001) -- Dr. Ingo Potrykus, creator of the revolutionary Golden Rice, will be the featured speaker at the next installment of the Profiles and Perspectives series sponsored by the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. The event is free to the public and takes place on Thursday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. in the Southern Oklahoma Technology Center located in Ardmore.

In 1999, Potrykus created Golden Rice before his retirement from a full professorship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He has since been pictured on the cover of Time magazine, as well as featured in numerous scientific journals and internationally in newspapers.

According to UNICEF, more than 100 million pre-school-age children are vitamin A deficient with most living in developing countries. Vitamin A supplementation is estimated to lower a child’s risk of dying from several diseases by about 23 percent. Golden rice is estimated to save the lives of an estimated one million children a year.

Potrykus travels the world with two missions: 1) to get the rice to the people who need it most, the approximately three billion people whose main food staple is rice; and 2) expounding the value of research into how common food plants can be fortified with traits and healthy nutrients that make them more beneficial for both consumers and farmers.

"Dr. Potrykus is a valuable ambassador for the work of gene modification as a tool to improve the quality of life which is an important part of the mission of the Noble Foundation," said Michael A. Cawley, president of the Noble Foundation. "He is a brilliant scientist with a passion to get this great discovery into the hands of the people who need it most. His talk will be an inspiration to all who attend."

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Photo: Dr. Ingo Potrykus

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, visit the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release