Participants of workshop on Marker-Assisted Backcrossing.

A workshop on Information System for Marker-Assisted Backcrossing (ISMAB) was held on 17 and 18 May at Patancheru. This workshop is part of the ISMAB project funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Integrated Breeding Platform of the Global Challenge Program.

In addition to the ICRISAT users, five external participants with expertise in application of molecular markers for crop improvement were invited.

The experts included PK Gupta, Honorary Emeritus Professor and Senior Scientist, National Academy of Sciences. Harinder Singh Balyan from Choudhary Charan Singh University;

T Mohapatra, National Research Center on Plant Biotechnology; T Nepolean, Indian Agricultural Research Institute; and R Sundaram, Directorate of Rice Research.

The workshop was conducted by Trushar Shah in association with Rajeev Varshney and the training course organizing committee of the Center of Excellence in Genomics. All the participants were able to review the prototype version. A number of very useful suggestions for enhancing the system were received. Inputs from experts at this workshop will be immensely useful for the plant breeding community at large in improving the information system. Interested staff members can have more details from Trushar Shah, Bioinformatics and GT-Biotechnology.

Source: ICRISAT Happenings