The Department of Biotechnology organized
a Guest Lecture by Prof. Prem P.Jauhar on the topic-“Genetic
Enhancement of Wheat Utilizing Tools of classical Cytogenetics and
Modern Biotechnology: Prospects and challenges”, on the 20th
of December, 2007.
The lecture included an interesting
account of how transgenic technology was used in accelerating genetic
enhancement of wheat. Wild relatives of wheat carrying genes for
agronomic traits like resistance to Fusarium Head Blight- a devastating
disease of wheat were used as a source of such genes which were
incorporated into the chromosome of the durum wheat.
Dr. Jauhar’s research career spans over a
period of 40 years. He has worked in three continents- Asia, Europe and
North America. The main thrust of his research is to produce improved
wheat germplasm by transferring desirable traits from wild relatives of
wheat andthrough genetic transformation. His works have been published
in prestigious International Journals including Nature, Chromosome,
Genome, Mutation Research, etc.
The lecture was attended by the students
and faculty members of the Science stream. |