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The
Department of Plant Molecular Biology was established in 1988 under the
Faculty of Interdisciplinary and Applied Sciences to cater to the needs
of students in frontier areas of plant biology and to carry out
research on Molecular Aspects of Plant Biology and
Biotechnology.
The Department was enriched by merger of the Unit for Plant Cell and
Molecular Biology in 1988 (originally established by the DST), and
award of COSIST grant by the UGC (1990-1995). The Department
has
been recently recognised for Special Assistance (DRS) by the UGC
(2002-2007) to strengthen research/teaching in the area of Functional
Genomics. Since its establishment in 1988, Professor S.C.
Maheshwari
(1988-1992), Professor Akhilesh K. Tyagi (1988, 1992-95,
1998-01), Professor J.P. Khurana (1995-1998, 2001-
2004),
Professor P. Khurana (2004 - 2007) and Professor Anil Grover (2007 - to date) have
served as Heads of the Department.
Major areas of research include:
(i) Novel plant genes and regulation of
their
expression
(ii) Signal transduction and photobiology,
(iii) Transgenics for crop improvement and human health
(iv) Stress molecular biology,
(v) Reproductive Biology
(vi) Plant genomics and
(vii) Gene function exploration.
The
research has been supported by major grants in the form of
“Centre
for Plant Molecular Biology” and “Genome
Initiatives on Sequencing, Gene Discovery and
Function” by DBT, in addition to other competitive grants
from DST, UGC, European Commission and the Rockefeller Foundation. The
faculty is involved in multi–institutional as well as
international projects. The research
has yielded about 200 publications and a few
patents have been filed. Efforts of the faculty have been
recognized in the form of fellowships to national scientific
academies and national awards. While providing due
emphasis for basic research and training, the Department endeavors to
convert knowledge into application for human welfare.
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