Rice is the most important food source for half the world's population. In August 2005, the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project (IRGSP) consortium published a joint paper in Nature, which announced the completion of the decoding of the rice genome, the first crop plant sequenced and expected to have a great impact on agriculture. This accurate, map-based sequence has already led to the identification of genes responsible for agronomical-important traits such as growth habit, yield, and photoperiod and extending the range of elite cultivars. Taiwan has participated in this international consortium since 1999 and worked on the sequencing of chromosome 5. During the past 6 years, a central lab, the Academia Sinica Plant Genome Center (ASPGC), located at the Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, was established, with several principal investigators . At its most active stage, ASPGC involved about 20 young scientists, including postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and assistants. The funding and hardware were supported by the National Science Council, Council of Agriculture, Academia Sinica, and Institute of Botany. During 2002, when IRGSP had a request for an extremely high sequencing speed, the National Yang Ming University Genome Research Center (YMGC) and Vita Genomics, Inc. (Vita) also joined in high-throughput sequencing. In 2003, when we had to close the gap and increase the assembled sequence quality, two labs in the United States, Cold Spring Harbor National Lab (CSHL) and Arizona Genomics Institute (AGI), helped sequence some BAC/PAC clones located in the centromere region. Currently, 288 clones exist at the chromosome 5 minimal tiling path, with 282 being in the completed (PLN) phase with high-quality annotation. This chromosome contains 3687 genes, 8.7% related to transposable elements.