Jyoti Kumari
ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, India
Title: Plant genetic resources: Advancing conservation and use through biotechnology
Biography
Biography: Jyoti Kumari
Abstract
Plant genetic resource is the basic foundation block of sustainable agriculture on which food and nutritional security rely globally. Era of new generation plant breeding has generated loss of genetic diversity and genetic erosion in the cultivars in the field. Biotechnology with its various possible applications on plant genetic resource management has rekindled the hope of regeneration of our vanishing plant genetic resources particularly with the recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering that enable us to splice genes across the plant and animal kingdoms. Traditionally, it has contributed significantly in the safe conservation of difficult material in the gene bank (cryopreservation), tissue and organ culture, artificial seeds and rescue of rare embryos, etc. In future it holds promise in conservation of genomic resources like DNA library, vectors, RNA library etc which are indispensable tools for post-genomic research, be it characterization of a species or functional analysis of genes or comparative genomics or plant breeding. This tool will also help in removal of redundancy in gene bank, trait novelty detection; core set development and genetic integrity study. The bioinformatics tool will also handle huge genomic resources and help comprehending utilizable component of gene and tracking of particular germplasm or gene with accuracy and thus may resolve many IPR issues among the stakeholders. Simultaneously the search for newer genes in the conserved gene bank material for biotic/abiotic stresses and quality would be possible with allele mining and association mapping technology.