There is a common misconception that only advanced industrialized nations have the wherewithal and skilled human resources needed to achieve cutting-edge science. This misconception is fanned by the number of researchers from developing countries who find it necessary to obtain their research training abroad — and frequently decide not to return, citing a lack of scientific opportunity. But it is given the lie by a paper published in this issue which describes the result of a project carried out by a consortium of research centres in the state of São Paolo in Brazil to sequence the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. This bacterium causes a disease that affects citrus fruit and other important crops, resulting in many millions of dollars of damage each year (see page 151) .

As the first public sequence of a free-living plant pathogen, the paper represents a significant scientific milestone. But it also sends a clear political signal, namely both the desire and ability of countries such as Brazil to play in the big league. The sequencing project was deliberately chosen by the project's main funding agency, FAPESP, to play a catalytic role in helping research teams equip themselves for the challenge of the post-genome era. It was also intended to send a signal to Brazil's young scientists that they do not need to leave the country to engage in world-class science. In both respects, it appears to have succeeded.

Of course, sequencing the genome of the bacterium is only the first step towards controlling the damage that it causes. The next is to apply functional genomics to understand how the bacterium's genes operate, opening up routes to possible intervention in limiting its spread by insects. Eventually, knowledge of the genome could provide the information required to breed resistant varieties of the affected crops. This raises a separate set of challenges — to persuade the Brazilian public that transgenic plants can play an important economic role, and at the same time to take firm steps to avoid untoward social and environmental consequences (see page 115).

On the technical side, much of this lies some way in the future. But the success of the X. fastidiosa project has already attracted significant expressions of interest for similar projects from other parts of the farming community — one proposal high on the list is for the same sequencing centres to turn their attention to chicken expressed sequence tags (ESTs). It has also given rise to the welcome and relatively unusual phenomenon of an agency in the advanced industrialized world — in this case the US Department of Agriculture, worried about the impact of a variety of X. fastidiosa on citrus crops in California — contracting research from a developing country. Both achievements endorse Brazil's determination to enter the post-genome age hand-in-hand with scientists in richer countries.