ICAR-National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi

National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology
(Indian Council of Agricultural Research)
Lal Bahadur Shastri Building
Pusa Campus, New Delhi 110 012
(An ISO 9001 : 2008 Certified Institute)
www.nrcpb.org
Printed : July 2015
All Rights Reserved
© 2015, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi
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Foreword
Indian Council of Agricultural Research, since inception in the year
1929, is spearheading national programmes on agricultural research,
higher education and frontline extension through a network of Research
Institutes, Agricultural Universities, All India Coordinated Research
Projects and Krishi Vigyan Kendras to develop and demonstrate
new technologies, as also to develop competent human resource for
strengthening agriculture in all its dimensions, in the country. The
science and technology-led development in agriculture has resulted in
manifold enhancement in productivity and production of different crops
and commodities to match the pace of growth in food demand.
Agricultural production environment, being a dynamic entity,
has kept evolving continuously. The present phase of changes being
encountered by the agricultural sector, such as reducing availability of
quality water, nutrient deficiency in soils, climate change, farm energy
availability, loss of biodiversity, emergence of new pest and diseases,
fragmentation of farms, rural-urban migration, coupled with new IPRs
and trade regulations, are some of the new challenges. These changes impacting agriculture call for a paradigm shift in our
research approach. We have to harness the potential of modern science,
encourage innovations in technology generation, and provide for an
enabling policy and investment support. Some of the critical areas as
genomics, molecular breeding, diagnostics and vaccines, nanotechnology,
secondary agriculture, farm mechanization, energy, and technology
dissemination need to be given priority. Multi-disciplinary and multiinstitutional research will be of paramount importance, given the fact
that technology generation is increasingly getting knowledge and capital
intensive. Our institutions of agricultural research and education must
attain highest levels of excellence in development of technologies and
competent human resource to effectively deal with the changing scenario.
Vision-2050 document of ICAR-National Research Centre on Plant
Biotechnology (NRCPB), New Delhi has been prepared, based on a
comprehensive assessment of past and present trends in factors that
impact agriculture, to visualise scenario 35 years hence, towards scienceled sustainable development of agriculture.
v
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
We are hopeful that in the years ahead, Vision-2050 would prove to
be valuable in guiding our efforts in agricultural R&D and also for the
young scientists who would shoulder the responsibility to generate farm
technologies in future for food, nutrition, livelihood and environmental
security of the billion plus population of the country, for all times to
come.
(S. AYYAPPAN)
Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research & Education (DARE)
and Director-General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
Krishi Bhavan, Dr Rajendra Prasad Road,
New Delhi 110 001
vi
Preface
Biotechnological interventions available could expedite developing
designer/smart crops. Application of transgenic technology for sustainable
agricultural production is well established across the globe. This
technology has been successfully employed for targeting traits such as
herbicide tolerance, insect-pest resistance, virus resistance, delayed fruit
ripening, nutritional and oil composition, male sterility and restoration
systems. Indian farmers have benefited immensely from transgenic Bt
cotton in which yield has taken a quantum jump from 13.6 million bales
to 37.0 million bales within a short span of 11 years. This unparallel
increase in yield could be made feasible by the use of Bt (Bacillus
thuringiensis) gene, which helped in controlling the dreaded cotton pest
Helicoverpa armigera. Therefore, it is imperative to extend transgenic
technology to taxonomically diverse and agronomically important crop
species that are often subjected to various biotic and/or abiotic stresses.
Equally important is to educate and spread awareness among public
about the efficacy and safety of this technology.
During the last decade, genomics has taken a centre stage in plant
biology research. Many national and international programmes were
initiated on decoding the complete genomes of agriculturally important
crop plants. National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology (NRCPB)
has contributed to the sequencing of various plant genomes. The
genome sequence information is very important in designing new DNA
markers, performing comparative genomics, helps in rapid cloning and
characterization of genes and their utilization in developing climate
smart crop varieties. With the advent of mapping genes of agronomically
relevant traits with closely linked or gene-specific markers, it has now
become an important tool for marker-assisted selection. Latest genome
editing technologies like CRISPER-Cas (Clustered regularly interspaced
short palindromic repeats), TALEN (transcription activator like effecter
nucleases) and Zinc finger nucleases hold great promise for crop
improvement in future.
Human resource development (HRD) has been one of the major
thrusts of NRCPB for developing trained and skilled human resource
in the areas of agricultural biotechnology. Thousands of post graduate
students, teachers and scientific personnel's have already been trained
vii
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
in molecular biology and biotechnology which are working in the
NARS and abroad. Keeping the challenges of Indian agriculture in
mind, the present vision document endeavours to strengthen the
ongoing research programmes and include emerging high priority areas
such as neutraceutical genetics and molecular biology, development
and application of plantibodies, understanding plant immunity and
management of abiotic stress.
I know that many unparallel and novel discoveries have been made
and many new techniques have emerged during the past 60 years.
Biological research being dynamic, one can expect many more new
techniques and tools to handle prospective problems in an efficient
way. The challenge to increase agricultural production to meet food and
nutritional security will be more in view of global climate change. I am
sure we will be successful in mitigating such challenges with the advent
of innovative techniques expected to be developed in future.
I am very thankful to Dr S Ayyappan, DG, ICAR and Secretary
DARE, Dr. J S Sandhu, DDG (CS) and Dr JS Chauhan, ADG (Seeds)
for their valuable suggestions in developing this Vision 2050 document
and also for their unending support for NRCPB.
I am thankful to the scientists of NRCPB for providing inputs in
the preparation of this document. I place on record my sincere thanks to
Drs S R Bhat, Srinivasan, SV Amitha Mithra and Amolkumar Solanke
for the preparation of this document.
NRCPB, New Delhi
(T.R. Sharma)
viii
Contents
Message
iii
Foreword
v
Prefacevii
1.Context
1
2.Challenges
5
3. Operating Environment
8
4. New Opportunities
10
6. Goals and Targets
12
7. Way Forward
14
Abbreviations
BAC
Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes
BRL
Biosafety Research Level
Bt
Bacillus thuringiensis
BTC
Biotechnology Centre
cDNA
Complementary DNA
CMS
Cytoplasmic Male Sterility
EST
Expressed Sequence Tags
GMO
Genetically Modified Organism
GSS
Genome Survey Sequences
HTG sequences
High Throughput Genomic sequences
IARI
Indian Agricultural Research Institute
MAS
Marker Assisted Selection
NARS
National Agriculture Research System
NRCPB
National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology
PPP
Public Private Partnership
SFB
Shoot and Fruit Borer
SNP
Single Nucleotide Polymorphism
SSH
Suppression Subtractive Hybridization
SSR
Simple Sequence Repeats
STS
Sequence Tagged Site
T-DNA
Transfer DNA
x
Context
Importance of Biotechnology
In India, National Agricultural Research System (NARS) is
responsible for sustainable growth of Indian agriculture through its
three mainstays namely, education, research and extension. There are
100 research institutes along with 73 state agricultural universities
under the NARS. Green revolution, bringing self-sufficiency in food
grain production is the pinnacle of conventional breeding. India is
projected to be the most populous country in the world by 2050 with
nearly 1.5 billion mouths to feed every day. To meet the food demand,
especially in the recently envisioned Right to Food Act 2013, we need to
double the agricultural production and maximize productivity under the
challenging conditions of diminishing natural resources and consequences
of global climate change. The spectacular advances made in the field of
Biotechnology offer opportunities to mitigate these intractable problems.
With the advancement in life-sciences and technologies, generation
of huge amount of molecular data and analysis has become possible
leading to the system biology approach to find solutions to future
challenges in agriculture. Sequencing genomes of plants and microbes
has become a routine affair which has opened up opportunities which
were earlier thought impractical. Rapid fine mapping and cloning has
revealed functions of a plethora of genes which can be used in crop
improvement either through conventional and molecular approaches.
Thus biotechnology has an important role to play in agriculture by
offering techniques, valuable genes and alleles and improved material
for breeding for sustainable as well as productive cropping.
National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology
National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology was initiated as
Biotechnology Centre (BTC) in Indian Agricultural Research Institute
(IARI) in 1985. Envisaging the potential role of biotechnology in
agriculture, the BTC was upgraded to National Research Centre. Besides
research in the areas of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology,
teaching and training are the major activities of the Centre, emphasizing
crop improvement through biotechnological interventions leading to
development of products, processes, patents and research publications in
1
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
high impact journals. From its inception till 2014, the Centre bagged
projects from various funding agencies and currently it has 42 projects
worth 112 crores running with 34 scientists.
In January 1985, BTC was established in the Division of Genetics,
by bringing together expertise from different areas of biological sciences
such as Microbial Genetics, Plant Tissue Culture, Basic Genetics and
Cytogenetics. The NRCPB came into existence in 1993 and started
its post-graduate programme in 1994 along with PG School, IARI.
From the humble beginning with plant tissue culture, it moved into
the areas of genomics and genetic engineering. The Centre has started
working in mandate crops namely, rice, mustard, wheat, pigeonpea,
and chickpea for productivity and quality enhancement, isolation of
genes and promoters, genetic engineering for biotic and abiotic stress
management and molecular markers and genomics. Later as the Centre
developed facilities, manpower, expertise and linkages and collaborations,
it also started working on other crops such as cotton, tomato, brinjal,
finger millet, and Arabidopsis.
Genomics
As a part of International Rice Genome Sequencing Project,
NRCPB was involved in sequencing of chromosome 11 of rice.
The Centre was also associated
Salient Achievements during XI plan
with the international tomato
genome sequencing consortium, • Collaborator in International Tomato
for sequencing the long arm
Genome Sequencing Project and
(q) of tomato chromosome 5
sequenced chromosome 5
(73 to 119 cM). Pigeonpea • Independently sequenced pigeonpea
genome
genome sequencing, a complete
indigenous endeavour, was • Sequenced the microbial genome of
Mycorhizobium ciceri, a nitrogen fixing
completed and the first draft was
bacterium
published in 2011. The Centre
• Gene pyramiding for bacterial blight
was also a partner in wheat
resistance in rice leading to development
genome project sequencing
of ‘Improved Pusa Basmati 1’
chromosome 2A. Whole genome • Somatic hybridization for transfer of CMS
sequencing of Mesorhizobium
system from Moricandia to Indian mustard
ciceri was also carried out. To • Two patents awarded and twenty
identify candidate genes for
technologies commercialized
drought resistance in cotton, • Received Sardar Patel award for
outstanding ICAR institution in 2010
gene expression analysis was
done in cotton plants subjected • Received Mahindra Samriddhi Krishi
Sansthan Sammann in 2012
to drought stress during boll
2
Vision 2050
development using microarray. Transcriptome profiling using microarray
in rice for drought tolerance identified 877 differentially expressed genes
in upland rice variety, Nagina22, at booting stage.
Molecular Markers and Breeding
Currently, the markers of choice are SNPs and SSRs. New SSR
marker sets have been developed for many important crops like rice,
Indian mustard, sugarcane and pigeonpea. For blast resistance in rice,
a major gene named Pi-kh (redesignated as Pi54) was identified and
cloned by map based cloning from variety Tetep and its Orthologues,
Pi54rh and Pi54of from wild species. This gene is being used countrywide
to develop blast resistant rice lines by the breeders. For bacterial
blight resistance in rice, two resistance genes namely xa13 and Xa21
have been successfully pyramided and Improved Pusa Basmati 1 was
developed using MAS. We have also conceptualized three new classes of
markers namely unigene based microsatellite (UGMS), genic non-coding
microsatellite markers (GNMS) and highly variable SSR (HvSSR) and
developed them for rice, pigeonpea and Indian mustard.SNPs have been
discovered and validated for large scale genotyping applications in rice
and pigeonpea. Three high throughput SNP assays have been developed
and used for tagging important traits in rice and pigeonpea.
Plant Transformation and Tissue Culture
The first product through tissue culture from the Centre, is a
mustard variety, ‘Pusa Jaikisan’ developed in 1994 for commercial
cultivation, which is a somaclone of the then popular variety Varuna.
This cultivar is popular even today among the farmers, nearly more
than 20 years after its release. Following this, the Centre developed
another somaclone, Bio-YSR, again in mustard, which serves as the
National Check genotype for white rust resistance disease caused by the
fungus Albugo candida in the All India Coordinated Crop Improvement
Programme in the country.
Transformation protocols are the pre-requisite for development
of transgenics. The Centre has standardized genetic transformation in
Indian mustard, wheat, rice, pigeonpea and chickpea. The first genetically
engineered indigenous product, transgenic Brinjal (Solanum melongena
L.) carrying a synthetic Bt-cry1Ab gene exhibiting significant protection
against shoot and fruit borer (SFB) was developed. Similarly, transgenic
tomato carrying a synthetic cry1Ac gene for protection against tomato
fruit borer (H. armigera), has reached BRL trials.Transgenic rice has
been produced with AtDREB1 gene for tolerance to abiotic stresses
3
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
which are now in advanced generation. Transgenic lines of Brassica
juncea exhibiting resistance to aphid infestation in RLM 198 carrying
pea lectin gene and resistance to infection by Alternaria brassicae in
Varuna carrying NPR1 gene were generated.
Genes and Promoter Characterization
The direct involvement of orf18 upstream to mitochondrial atpA
in causing CMS was demonstrated in Diplotaxis erucoides, Moricandia
arvensis, D. berthautii and D. catholica. Chlorosis correction in CMS
(mori) system was achieved by complete substitution of chloroplasts
of wild species by that of the cultivated. The improved mori system
along with its restoration counterpart has been transferred to public
institutions as well as private companies for developing mustard hybrids.
Commercial Indian mustard hybrids (NRC HB 101 and Coral 432) have
been developed based on this system by public and private institutes.
This CMS system has also been transferred to cauliflower for production
of hybrids. T-DNA based insertional mutagenesis populations have been
generated to tag genes and promoters in Arabidopsis and, anther, root,
trichome and wound inducible genes and promoters have been isolated
and characterized. Pathogen inducible promoter has also been identified
and cloned from rice.
Plant Genome Database
Four local databases, plant genome database, cloned gene information
system, molecular marker information system and gene information
system for plants have been developed, continuously upgraded and
maintained. As of now, information on 95 plants divided in to seven
major categories as cereals, vegetables, oilseeds, legumes, fruits, fibres and
others, with 286 lakh entries are available in these databases. Different
categories of sequences like cDNA, ESTs, Unigene sequences, BAC
end sequences, High Throughput Genomic (HTG) sequences, STS and
Genome Survey Sequences (GSS) are available in them. Major part of
the database is contributed by ESTs (56%) and GSS (32%).

4
Challenges
K
in view the anticipated challenges which are specific as well
as relevant to NRCPB and its mandate are discussed below:
Demand for sustainable agriculture: The research as well as
policy framework needs to be structured considering the need for
not a green revolution but a greener and sustainable agriculture
without adversely affecting physical and socio-economic resources
of the country. This needs that molecular mechanisms of plants be
understood in every aspect starting from growth, photosynthesis,
flowering, source-sink relationship, senescence, biotic and abiotic
stress tolerance, crop architecture, biosynthesis and catabolism till
nutrient accumulation so that breeding and biotechnology can
target improvement accordingly. This in turn demands that basic
and strategic research be strengthened in agriculture since all
improvements would be spin offs from the former.
Environmental changes: Climate change bringing in unpredicted
weather conditions with hotter and prolonged summers, colder
and shorter winters, unexpected rain falls as well as dry spells, ever
decreasing water tables, degraded lands and improper land use with
increase in salinity, sodicity and acidity have made developing plant
types tolerant to abiotic stress tolerance more important than ever.
The efforts initiated towards this in terms of understanding the
molecular mechanism of tolerance and underpinning the candidate
genes for the same need to be pursued with greater vigour.
Food Security: Certain Government policies have greater and direct
impact on agriculture and are very relevant to the mandate of the
Centre. One such important policy is the Right to Food Act 2013
which requires that the food production and productivity needs
are met with more urgency. The policy of the GOI on transgenic
research also needs to be clearly defined so that the Centre can
devise its research programme accordingly.
Quality Improvement and Neutraceuticals: By 2050 more than
60% of the Indian population is expected to reside in urban areas
whose food habits are quite different from the traditional diet.
With increasing awareness levels as well as economic status, it is
anticipated that value added genotypes such as cereals with enhanced
level of iron and calcium, low allergenic and high quality protein
eeping
1.
2.
3.
4.
5
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
5.
6.
7.
8.
may have higher demands. The consumption pattern also could
significantly shift towards fruits and vegetables including milk and
milk products. This may bring greater emphasis of biotechnological
applications in horticultural, and feed and fodder crops.
Plant type for changed cropping pattern and mechanization:
With increase in population and corresponding demand for shelter
the land resources are expected to dwindle putting more pressure on
land. In such a scenario, exploitation of heterosis and development of
ultra short duration varieties could be one of the solutions. Ideotype
or crop architecture breeding would also assume more importance
not only for ideal or enhanced productivity but also for mechanized
agricultural operations.
Biosafety issues related to transgenics/new genome editing
technologies: Issues related to biosafety of transgenics are gaining
significance in the changing global scenario, and India has to take
adequate measures for safeguarding its biodiversity and natural
wealth. Biosafety is also required to promote safe laboratory practices,
procedures, proper use of containment facilities, equipment, risk
assessment and risk management, evaluation of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) etc. Since new genome editing technologies
more often than not edit the existing genome to develop products
which may not be genetically modified (though the process is), the
biosafety regulations need to be in tune with the specific technique
and/or final product rather than blanket regulations. Hence these
challenges need to be addressed on priority.
Need for enhancing bioinformatics and computational biology:
This is one of the areas where the rest of the world is much ahead
of us and is an important technological challenge for the Centre and
the country. With the availability of enormous data in structural and
functional genomics, expertise in bioinformatics and computational
biology supplemented with wet lab studies is the need of the hour.
Despite the advances made in statistical and biological sciences there
are no dedicated and collaborative efforts which can yield results in
this particular area.
Need for PPP model: With globalization and the entry of
multibillion dollar companies in transgenic research with huge
investment, the public sector especially in developing countries do
not have a level playing field. Thus developing partnerships with
private sector on the basis of mutually beneficial terms could be a
good option to overcome this issue.
6
Vision 2050
Resource Base
World Class Infrastructure at NRCPB
The aforesaid challenges
• Next Generation Sequencing Facility
and the key areas identified to
• Sequencing Facility
address them would need a lot • High throughput Genotyping Facility
of matching resources in terms • Transcriptome Facility
of manpower, infrastructure • Proteomics Lab
and funding allocated on the • Bioinformatics Lab
basis of scientific considerations • Insect Culture Room
and backed by favourable • Plant Transformation Labs
policy domain. NRCPB has • Transgenic Glass House
infrastructure of international
standard to some extent and
expertise in handling sophisticated molecular biology techniques.
Constant training of human resources is required to keep pace with the
technological advancements.
q
7
Operating Environment
R
now we are more
Possible Scenario in 2050
than three and half decades
• Climate change
away from 2050 and there is
¾¾ Increase in temperature and CO2
likely to be radical changes
concentration
in the operating environment
¾¾ Input constraints for agriculture
that would prevail then. India
¾¾ New insect pests, diseases and weeds
is projected to be the most • Environmental concerns
populous country in the world
¾¾ Soil nutrient depletion
with about 1.5 billion people.
¾¾ Depletion of fossil fuels
¾¾ Competition between food and biofuel
Hence Food Security for all
crops
would be the most important
•
Agriculture
as commercial activity
challenge. With limited land,
¾
¾
Wider
acceptability
of transgenic crops
water and nutrient resources
¾¾ C o m p l e t e m e c h a n i z a t i o n a n d
under drastic climate change
consolidated farming
scenario, biotechnology would
¾¾ Entry of new species into agriculture
play a pivotal role in crop • Change in consumer preference
improvement.
¾¾ Lifestyle diseases leading to change
• Extremes in temperature,
in food habits
erratic and aberrant rainfall,
¾¾ Consumer awareness on nutritional
fewer rainy days, depletion
security
of availability of quality • Technological advances
¾¾ Highly automated and faster genome/
water for irrigation and
transcriptome/proteome/metabolome
increased CO2 concentration
profiles for efficient selection
would be the major drivers
¾
¾
Refined and integrated technologies
of research.
such as nanotechnology, bioinformatics
• The superior genes and
and genome editing
alleles for better productivity
under changed environment
would demand better understanding of the physiology of the crop.
• There would also be likely change in the insect pest dynamics,
diseases and weed flora in the future which would altogether be a
different challenge. This is expected to necessitate development of
herbicide tolerant and insect/nematode/disease resistant crops.
• Due to overexploitation of land resources and improper nutrient
management, there will be continuous decline in soil fertility
and nutrient availability. This makes identification of symbiotic
ight
8
Vision 2050
relationships for nitrogen fixation not only in legumes but also in
other crop species, solubilisation of phosphorous in soils as well
as genotypes that can perform well and sustain higher yield under
low/starving nutrient conditions.
• The changes in socio-economic conditions would also lead to
diversification in food habits as well as nutritional requirements.
This would invite research programmes for changing the amino
acid/lipid/carbohydrate profile of the food grains.
• Due to awareness in food and nutrition as well as threats from
lifestyle diseases, many minor or orphan crops such as coarse cereals
and minor millets may enter main stream agriculture necessitating
molecular insight into these crops also.
It is not that the future would be entirely bleak. At least for certain
issues the prevailing scenario might be bright. By 2050, agriculture
could be a commercial activity, with wider acceptance of transgenics,
complete mechanization and consolidated farming becoming a norm
rather than exception. Advances in technologies such as nanotechnology,
bioinformatics and genome editing and their integration in crop
improvement may offer exciting solutions to the prevailing as well as
emerging problems.
q
9
New Opportunities
T
and techniques of biotechnology in recent years have
provided an altogether new dimension to crop improvement
activities. It is now possible to mobilize genes of economic importance
across species and phyla. Since the whole biological world has become
a single gene pool, it is possible to identify gene(s) of interest from
any source, suitably modify them, mobilize them into target plants
and make them express in tissue specific manner. Considering these
developments in view, it is proposed to exploit the biotechnological
potentials in crop improvement programmes with major emphasis
on the following areas:
• Owing to climate change, it is important to develop new plant types
which can withstand harsh environmental conditions and suit the
cropping pattern. Biotechnology can play a major role in developing
such varieties or breeding materials using genomic and transgenic
approaches.
• Nutritional content enrichment of food grains especially, protein and
minerals such as iron, zinc, calcium would be an important goal
for agriculture researchers. Understanding pathways for nutrient
uptake and its bio-availbility in edible parts would be helpful in
designing nutri rich food by incorporating favourable genes from
across species.
• Agriculture and human resource development would always remain
main pillars for sustainble growth. The Centre has a major role to
play in developing human resources in frontier areas of biotechnology
with its strong infrastructure.
• Right now the conventional varietal development programme in the
country has a strong foundation in terms of AICRIPs, crop-based
institutes, SAUs and hundreds of breeders working in any crop across
the country with vast experience. It would be prudent to develop
appropriate public-private partnerships for transgenic development
interms of event generation, evaluation and selection and finally
commmercialization.
• Improvement in phenotyping facilities such as hyperspectral imaging–
in terms of speed, accuracy, computing and availability of appropriate
instruments would make precise selection of superior genotypes as
an error free process.
ools
10
Vision 2050
• Right now automations for single plant selection, based on DNA
markers alone is possible; by 2050 it may be a routine affair to get
transcriptome/proteome/metabolome profiles for single plants under
various stages in faster and cost-effective manner making molecular
technology or genomics assisted breeding a simple process.
• Similarly, homologous recombination based transgenic development
could make genetic manipulations faster and precise. The molecular
basis of apomixis might have been understood leading to exploitation
of the same for fixing heterosis. Overcoming the barrier of
photoperiod for flowering could lead to development of photoinsensitive short duration crops.
q
11
Goals and Targets
T
plan a journey it is important to be clear about the destination.
Similarly to plan the future it is important to know what are our
goals and targets. Then only appropriate research programmes can be
developed to achieve them. Based on the emerging challenges and the
operating environment expected, the following programmes have been
envisaged for 2050:
o
Productivity Enhancement
• Commercial exploitation of heterosis by harnessing apomixis in
major crops
• Improving photosynthetic efficiency in cereals
Quality Improvement
• Biofortification of cereal crops through pathway engineering
• Exploitation of crops like flax and finger millet for Neutraceuticals
Management of Biotic Stresses
• Development of broad spectrum resistance to important plant
diseases
• Understanding host mediated signal transduction in response to
insect attack in mandate crops
Management of Abiotic stresses
• Pathway engineering for abiotic stress tolerance from heterologous
sources such as extremophiles
• Understanding molecular mechanism of nutrient uptake and
utilization in crops
Novel Techniques for Crop Improvement
•
•
•
•
Whole genome selection for varietal development
Engineering plants by genome editing technologies
Use of bioinformatics and nanotechnology for genome engineering
Robust regeneration and transformation systems for mandate crop
plants
• Proteome and metabolome atlas of crop plants vis-a vis phenotypes
• Use of system biology approach for complex traits in mandate crops
12
Vision 2050
Resource Generation
Biotechnological research is quite expensive in the beginning but
once products are developed, it may become highly remunerative.
Initially, it requires a very high degree of foreign exchange component for
the purchase of equipments, chemicals, enzymes and kits from abroad.
Along with ICAR funded projects, research grants will be generated
from other funding agencies like DBT, DST, ICAR, DRDO and
ICMR. With involvement of NRCPB in multi-institutional and mission
oriented projects like genome sequencing, bioprospecting and allele
mining, national project on transgenic crops, the Centre had substantial
monetary support from national and international funding agencies.
Along with this, the Centre has also developed novel genes, constructs
and transgenic events and licensed them to various seed companies and
generated appreciable revenue. These trends are expected to be continued
in future too as research goals are focussed and target oriented. With
the modern laboratories and high end equipments which are constantly
upgraded and trained researchers, the Centre would impart training to
enhance the research capabilities in the country.
Linkage, Coordination and Execution Arrangements
NRCPB with its technical expertise and facilities in biotechnology
can provide a momentum to crop improvement when right linkages
with the sister institutes of ICAR, SAUs and private firms are in place.
For the past one and half decade the Centre has been engaged in one
or more international collaborations which have shaped NRCPB in
terms of infrastructure as well as technical expertise. These linkages and
collaborations are expected to be strengthened in the years to come.
q
13
Way Forward
I
the last 30 years, NRCPB has emerged as one of the competent,
progressive and responsible organizations in the field of plant
biotechnology in India. The Centre has established strong base for the
structural and functional genomics, transgenic development, generated
highly skilled manpower for biotechnology and strengthened national
as well as international collaborations. After gaining experience in
the field of genome sequencing, assembly and annotation during
rice, tomato and pigeonpea genome sequencing programme with
international collaborators, the Centre developed expertise in the field
of bioinformatics and computational biology. As a consequence, the
Centre has evolved as the structural and functional genomics hub
for all crops of national interest. As new science is the integration
of many basic and applied branches, NRCPB is also looking forward
to solve every biological problem via system biology approach
by incorporating new cutting edge fields like metabolomics,
ionomics, high throughput phenomics, robotics and nanoscience.
We are establishing structural base for these new branches. Besides,
establishing centralized and comprehensive biosafety testing for
transgenics before their commercial release and monitoring the same
on a continuous basis even after their release is our priority for
sustainable agriculture in the country.
n
In future, the following products in different crops will be emerging
as a result of the envisaged programmes:
• Insect-resistant Brassica, rice, pigeonpea, chickpea and important
vegetable crops
• Disease resistant genotypes of Brassica, rice and chickpea
• Molecular markers linked to important agronomic and quality traits
in Brassica, wheat and rice and other mandate crops
• Novel genes and promoters for biotic and abiotic stress management
• Genomic sequences and functionally validated genes of agricultural
importance
All this would be achieved by a three pronged approach:
1. Continuous development of latest infrastructure to enable cutting
end research and training in advanced areas and facilities
2. Focused multi-institutional programme to achieve complex goals such
14
Vision 2050
as converting C3 to C4 plants to improve photosynthesis efficiency
or QTL to variety programmes
3. Public-Private partnership for genomics, molecular breeding and
transgenic development and adaptability
q
15
NOTES
NOTES
NOTES
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