M.Sc. (Agri.) Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
With the establishment of the state-of-the-art facilities for teaching and research in the area of molecular biology and biotechnology, and the recruitment/deployment of excellent faculty at the department, it was decided to offer M. Sc. Programme with thesis work so that quality manpower is developed to realize the benefits of biotechnology in agriculture.
M. Sc. graduates, with their rich theoretical knowledge and hands-on expertise through thesis research, form excellent manpower for the doctoral research within and outside the country. Several theses have won the best masters thesis award at several competitions. The outcome of the theses includes quality publications in the national and international journals with high impact factors, patent applications and technologies. A considerable progress has been made in the area of
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Isolation and cloning of genes for insect and disease resistance, salt tolerance, drought tolerance etc. Those genes include, cry, glucanase, chitinase, lectin, ectoin etc
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Transgenic plants have been developed using these genes in the model plant systems (tobacco and tomato) as well other crop plants (chilli, pigeonpea, rice, sorghum, brinjal etc)
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Genomics resources have been generated in sorghum, pigeonpea, groundnut etc for molecular breeding for disease resistance, drought tolerance and heat tolerance.
Using bioinformatics approaches, a large number of markers have been used and they were used for molecular mapping.
Ph. D (Agri.) Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Considering the importance of addressing the important problems of the farming community, it was decided to take up doctoral research on the area of molecular biology and biotechnology.
The doctoral research generally leads to quality theses, publications and a few products (transgenics and improved genotypes using marker-assisted breeding). In certain cases, the doctoral programme has helped in understanding the molecular biology of complex traits. The important progress made from this programme include
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Functional genomics and gene discovery for agronomically important traits in sorghum pigeonpea groundnut etc. Transposon tagging, promoter trapping, RNAi and CRISPR/cas are being attempted in different crops.
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Several genes have been cloned and characterized for function.
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Using the genomic resources generated from molecular mapping, a considerable progress has been made on molecular breeding in sorghum, pigeonpea, groundnut and rice.
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A few lines with superior performance for drought tolerance and disease resistance have completed multi-location trial in groundnut and rice. They are being evaluated for variety development and commercialization.
Extensive data have been generated on metagenomics pertaining to soil health
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