Rice as the world's major food crop, R. Schmid Sandherr; rice improvement - challenge and priorities, R.W.Herdt; rice genetic resources, H. I. Oka; marker genes and chromosome maps, G.S.Khush; RFLPs in rice improvement, S.Tanksley; rice tissue culture and applications, E.C.Cocking; protoplast regeneration and transformation, T.Hodges; other techniques of transformation, R.Wu; characterization of rice genes , T.Okita; regulation of gene expression in rice, V.Walbot; novel genes for rice transformation, R.Beachy; molecular probes for disease diagnosis, V.E.Leach; status and prospects for rice genetic engineering, G.Toenniessen.