COFI is one of the committees of FAO's Council and oversees the work of
the Organization's Fisheries Department.
According to an FAO report to be presented tomorrow, deep-sea fisheries
resources are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation due to their low
productivity -- the fish reproduce slowly and take a long time to grow to
maturity.
According to a report prepared for COFI, the currently available
scientific information does suggest that MPAs could help achieve some
management objectives -- but only if they expressly address fisheries-specific
goals and constraints and are implemented alongside, not instead of,
conventional measures.D.

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The report also says that not enough is known about the population biology
of deep-sea stocks and the impacts of fishing on sea-bottom habitats, making
responsible management difficult.
MPAs are marine reserves where fishing and other human activities are
either prohibited or strictly controlled.

Agilent Technologies Releases Probe Sequence Annotation Information for All Its Commercial Gene Expression Microarrays

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With this sequence information, the research
community will be better equipped to interpret data generated with
Agilent arrays and to determine confidence in these data in future
years, when genomic sequences may have been updated. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at
www .

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----Agilent
Technologies Inc."
The microarray design and probe sequence information is now
available on Agilent's eArray web portal at earray.

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COFI's theme this year is "Ten
years towards responsible fisheries.

Deep-sea fishing: a new management challenge
Also on the agenda this week: emerging fishing practices that pose new
management challenges -- for example, deep-sea fishing of bottom-dwelling
stocks, only recently possible on a commercial scale as a result of new
technologies ."
Still, the potential of MPAs as a complementary measure for fisheries
management is very high, the report concluded, adding: "It is urgent to test
MPAs scientifically across a large range of situations in order to clarify
potentials, shortcomings and conditions of success for fisheries .

Business Editors/Technology Writers/Biotech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif. Icoria Inc. Agilent had net revenue of $7.

organisms summarizes

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"The
availability of these sequences will be of great benefit to the
microarray bioinformatics community and to databases such as the NCT's
CEBS as we seek to make high-quality toxicogenomics data sets publicly
available.

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Ten years towards responsible fisheries
Discussion on COFI's first day centered on implementation of the FAO Code
of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, a set of guidelines for responsible
fishing adopted by FAO's membership in 1995. (NYSE:A ) today announced that it has for the first
time released the chip design, probe sequence and annotation
information for all of its microarrays.

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Attendees include governmental delegations,
representatives of other UN agencies and observers from inter-governmental and
non-governmental organizations. It also makes recommendations to
governments, regional fisheries bodies and others involved in fisheries
management, and has served as a forum for the negotiation of global
instruments related to fisheries management.

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc.2 billion in fiscal year
2004.agilent.

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Marine Protected Areas, Deep-Sea Fishing, Tsunami-Relief on the Agenda

WASHINGTON and ROME, Responding to management
challenges posed by new fishing practices, considering the potential
contributions of marine protected areas to sustainable fishing, and finding
ways to responsibly rebuild fisheries in tsunami-struck countries are among
the issues being discussed by FAO's Committee on Fisheries (COFI), which is
meeting this week at the Organization's Rome headquarters .agilent.

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In that sense,
release of these sequences makes the results of experiments using
Agilent arrays far more valuable."
This announcement is being made in conjunction with the extensive
release of microarray experimental data into the public domain by the
National Toxicology Program., under its contract with the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), has been
using Agilent microarrays to perform thousands of experiments to
profile chemical effects on biological systems, thereby creating a
vast resource of gene expression responses to chemical toxicants.
On the same site, customers can examine the content of
Agilent-manufactured commercial microarrays and design their own
custom microarrays.com/about/newsroom/lsca
Further technology, corporate citizenship and executive news is
available on the Agilent news site at www.

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The release of this
information is expected to improve cross-laboratory experimental
research and cross-platform data comparison .

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Compounding matters is the fact that many
deepwater species are found on the high seas, where governance is particularly
complex.

Marine protected areas
Meeting participants will also discuss the pros and cons of marine
protected areas (MPAs) in fisheries management.
Both the 1992 Convention for Biological Diversity and the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development called for the creation of MPAs as a means
of protecting underwater biodiversity and maintaining high productivity in
fisheries.

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The report cautions that, "if designed with incomplete scientific
understanding and lack of attention to the needs of fisheries and to existing
management measures , MPAs could be ineffective or even counter-productive."

Tsunami-relief
FAO will also brief COFI participants on the situation of fisheries in
countries hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami and efforts to rebuild them.

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The company's 28,000 employees serve customers in more than 110
countries .

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FAO Committee on Fisheries Debates Management Challenges Old and New

The Organization is emphasizing the need to target assistance to small-
scale fishers and aquaculturalists as well as to avoid building up fishing
overcapacity as a result of relief efforts, which would be detrimental to the
sustainable use of the resources.agilent.

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chem.

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com/go/news

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The
data will eventually be made available through the NIEHS National
Center of Toxicogenomics' Chemical Effects on Biological Systems
(CEBS) database, currently under development.com

NOTE TO EDITORS: Press releases, photography and other information
can be accessed on the Agilent Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis
newsroom at www.

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"
Currently, most FAO members report having national fishing policies or
legislation in place that either totally or partially conform to the Code,
according to an FAO presentation made yesterday.com. Engineered for sensitivity, reproducibility and workflow
productivity, Agilent's integrated biology solutions include
instrumentation, microfluidics, software, microarrays, consumables and
services for genomics, proteomics and metabolomics applications.agilent.

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Ministerial meeting to follow COFI
Following COFI, a group of national fisheries ministers will take part in
a Ministerial meeting on 12 March to further discuss tsunami-relief as well as
how to deepen international cooperation on combating illegal, unreported and
unregulated fishing. "Rigorous science
requires that others be able to easily interpret and verify or
contradict one's work. Agilent-manufactured microarrays are based on the
industry-standard 1" x 3" slide format, making them readily and easily
accessible to any researchers who want to achieve a high degree of
sensitivity and precision in their experiments.

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Yet while more advanced fisheries management practices are being more
widely used worldwide, the presentation added, many fish stocks continue to be
either fully- or over exploited , as described in a new FAO report launched
yesterday, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture .
"Full release of the probe sequences is an admirable and
responsible position for Agilent to take," said Catherine Ball,
president of the Microarray Gene Expression Data (MGED) Society and
director of the Stanford Microarray Database.
"The NIEHS National Center for Toxicogenomics is very pleased that
Agilent has released the probe sequences for its gene expression
microarrays to the public domain," said Michael Waters, Ph.,
assistant director for database development of the NCT.

About Agilent Integrated Biology Solutions

Agilent Technologies is a leading supplier of life science
research systems that enable scientists to understand complex
biological processes, determine disease mechanisms and speed drug
discovery.

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Over 300 participants are attending the meeting , which opened yesterday
and runs through 11 March. (NYSE:A) is a global technology leader
in communications , electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis.