On his recent visit to China, Dr Rajeev Varshney was conferred a Visiting Professorship by the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GAAS), for his contribution and expanding collaboration in the area of groundnut genomics. Dr Varshney was a special guest at the conference on “Application of peanut genomics and products commercialization” held on 26 April and jointly organized by the GAAS, Science & Technology Cooperation Department of Guangdong Province and Crop Research Institute (CRI). The meeting was attended by more than 80 people, including GAAS Vice President Chen Dong; Director Liu Jiaping; Deputy Director of Science and Technology Cooperation Office Sun Ling; and top officials, scientists and students. The conference held deliberations on genomics, biotechnology, breeding, processing, industrial development and international cooperation for peanut.

Dr Rajeev Varshney being honored by GAAS Vice President Dr Chen Dong.

At the conference, Dr Varshney presented a lead paper on “Advances in applied genomics of peanut,” providing a global overview of peanut genomics applied to breeding, and highlighting the work of ICRISAT and its partners. He met with Drs R Cheng, Director, and Liang Xuanqiang, Head, Oilseed Crop Improvement. Dr Xuanqiang welcomed ICRISAT’s continued cooperation and collaboration with their peanut genomics and biotechnology program.

Dr Varshney also delivered an invited presentation entitled “Application of next-generation sequencing and high-throughput genotyping technologies for crop improvement” at the Guangzhou University. He also had discussions with senior officials from BGI-Shenzhen and Macrogen companies on sequencing and re-sequencing projects for ICRISAT’s mandate crops.

Source: ICRISAT Happenings