ICRISAT & DBT partner to establish CoE in Genomics

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is partnering with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India to establish a Center of Excellence in Genomics (CEG) at ICRISAT with financial support from DBT.

A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed by Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, and Dr MK Bhan, Secretary of DBT, were exchanged yesterday at a function organized at ICRISAT headquarters at Patancheru, India.

Through the MoA the Center of Excellence in Genomics project was launched at ICRISAT. The project will result in the establishment of the CEG, which will strengthen the existing molecular breeding facilities at ICRISAT to a high throughput, cost-effective facility, which can be used for crop improvement research. The facility, which is expected to be fully operational over the course of 2007, will also be available for researchers from other agricultural research institutes.

The CEG will provide:

·      High-throughput, low-cost, allele detection platforms, to help with molecular-marker assisted selection and breeding.

·      Access to large-scale field screening for abiotic stresses, such as drought and salinity.

·      Biometrics (agricultural statistics) and bioinformatics support.

·      Fellowships and training courses for scientists and students from the Indian institutes in the use of high-throughput methods in breeding and research.

According to Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, the partnership with DBT will help in improving agricultural productivity using improved tools cost-effectively. This will help in alleviating the poverty of smallholder farmers in the dryland areas of India and rest of the developing world.

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