Biotechnological approaches play an increasing role in breeding strategies for oil palm. They are fully integrated in the rapid integration of genetic progresses aimed at broadcasting improved material to the planters. Clonal micropropagation: In the mid-seventies, the first results obtained by the strategy of reciprocal recurrent selection (RRS) and the emergence of the methods of cloning by in vitro culture led to the development of a technique of micropropagation through somatic embryogenesis which was tested initially in Côte d'Ivoire, then in Malaysia and Indonesia. This work established the utility of clonal micropropagation which was found to enable the production of high yielding clones. In addition, this development phase highlighted the difficulties related to scaling-up in relation to, on the one hand, mass production required to meet the needs of planters and, on the other hand, the genetic fidelity of the regenerated plant material. These two concerns led the Cirad-IRD team to look further into the underlying mechanisms involved in somatic embyogenesis and the somaclonal variation events induced by the regeneration techniques. The development of a regeneration protocol based on the use of embryogenic suspensions has provided us with a method which allows production on a large scale of single somatic embryos displaying structural similarities with zygotic seed embryos. Studies of the late phases of embryogenesis were carried out through the comparative analysis of the development and maturation of zygotic and somatic embryos. Research work resulted in a better understanding of the physiology of the somatic embryo during its development, the accumulation of various types of storage molecules and of the mechanisms of acquisition of tolerance to desiccation. These data are prerequisites for the production of embryos which can be stored, i.e. the production of artificial seeds and/or cryopreserved embryos. Structural and functional genomics: The Cirad/IRD la