With the rapid development of economy and the increase of people＇s living standards, functional foods are being gradually embraced by consumers and have a great growth potential. Rice is the main staple food in China. It plays an important role in promoting people＇s health and in improving public nutrition, and therefore there is an ever-increasing consumer demand for rice for its functional quality. This study introduces the concept of functional rice and summarizes the current research progress on this topic and the application of breeding strategies including traditional breeding, induced mutagenesis, molecular marker-assisted selection and transgenic engineering in the research of a new generation of functional rice that posses health benefits, therapeutic values, bioreactor properties, and other unique functions. We then point out the prospect of functional rice from the point of view of social development, germplasm innovation, breeding of functional rice by biological technology and the test of active material related functional rice. We conclude that developing and marketing of functional rice is becoming a subject of great importance for research and is to be the focus of research in future.
