This book serves the teachers, researchers and the students as a handy and concise reference as well as guidebook while designing and planning for use of the advanced technologies for crop improvement.

The content of the book is designed to cover the latest genome engineering techniques for crop improvement. The conventional breeding has got its limitations such as non-availability of desired genes within the genepool. In many cases, breeding has been highly used and it has nearly reached its highest limit so far as the productivity and production of crops are concerned. However, with increasing need of food and decreasing resources, including water, land, labour, etc., to feed the growing population, the alternative available ways of increasing crop productivity need to be explored and exploited. Genome engineering has a wide scope that includes technologies such as genetic engineering and transgenesis, RNA technologies, CRISPR, cisgenics and subgenics for better productivityand more efficient biotic and abiotic stress management. Therefore, the book is planned to enlighten the readers with the advanced technologies with examples and case studies, whenever possible. Efforts will be made to emphasize on general efforts on various major food crops; however, it would also be made clear that such efforts could be taken as proofs of concepts and that this could be extrapolated keeping the demand in mind.

Autorentext

Bidyut Kumar Sarmah, Ph.D:

Presently, he is an ICAR-National Professor (Norman Borlaug Chair) and the Director of the DBT-North East Centre for Agricultural Biotechnology in Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, India. His major research contribution is the development of genetically modified chickpeas for resistance against two devastating insect pests (stored grain pests and pod borers) in collaboration with CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra. Professor Sarmah obtained his PhD from IARI, New Delhi and worked as postdoctoral researchers / visiting scientist in WSU, USA; CSIRO, Australia; FMI, Switzerland and AUA, Greece.

Basanta Kumar Borah, Ph.D.

Presently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, India, and is primarily involved in teachings in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Agricultural Biotechnology. He also has been involved in research areas on molecular virology, medicinal and aromatic plants. He has been an active partner of Erasmus Mundus Action-2 programme of European Union, called BRAVE and Erasmus plus programme, called Adaptnet with Professor Sarmah. Previously, he worked as postdoctoral researcher in the University of Basel, Switzerland, from 2009 to 2011 with Prof. Thomas Hohn and Dr. Mikhail M Pooggin.

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Inhalt

1

Genetic modification of Source-Sink for improved plant productivity

Thomas Okita (with Paul S Hwang)

Regents Professor, Professor of Molecular Plant Sciences, Washington State University, USA

2

Genome engineering for Crop improvement in China, especially the success in rice, in cotton and in other crops

Quanan Hu

Associate Professor, College of Life Sciences, LiaoCheng University, HuNan Road No.1, LiaoCheng, China

3

Transgenic approaches to develop virus resistance in rice

Indranil Dasgupta

Professor, Department of Plant Molecular Biology, University of Delhi South Campus, Benito Juarez Road, New Delhi, INDIA

4

Improved crops in the era of bacterial immunity factors (with Anirban Roy)

Sunil Mukherjee

Department of Genetics, University of Delhi South Campus, Benito Juarez Road, New Delhi

5

HIGS and environment RNA application for fungal diseases

V G Malathi, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Plant Pathology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India

6

Genetic engineering for biotic stress management in rice (tentative)

Amol Solanke

Scientist (SS), ICAR-NRC on Plant Biotechnology, LBS building, Pusa campus, New Delhi, India

7

Genome improvement for rust disease resistance in wheat

Rohit Mago

Cereal Rust Lab, CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra, Australia

8

Tailored Plant Oils for Food and Industrial Applications

Surinder Singh Group Leader: Plant Oil Engineering, Program: Crop Improvement for Novel Plant Products, CSIRO Agriculture & Food

9

Novel technologies for transgenic management for virus resistance

Andreas Voloudakis

Laboratory of Plant Breeding and Biometry, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece

10

Cisgenics, their application and regulation (tentative)

Bidyut Kumar Sarmah, ICAR-National Professor, (Norman Borlaug Chair) and Director, DBT-AAU Centre Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, India