I am studying the evolution of one of the diverse gene families in plants, receptor-like proteins (involved in defence and developmental activities in plants), in wild tomatoes under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Remco Stam.Tasks completed1) Developed a concrete bioinformatics pipeline for extracting RLPs from available omic data.2) Stored wild tomato accessions through tissue culture technique.3) R gene enrichment technique for capturing all RLPs from 144 different individuals from 8 different wild tomatoes (in progress).Activities in progress4) Cloning known CF (Cladosporium fulvum) recognizing receptors from wild tomatoes.5) Studying the evolution of defence-related RLPs.6)7)

I worked in the plant breeding group led by Vivianne Vleeshouwers. The project aimed to analyze the origin, diversity, distribution and evolution of the potato's Pep13 cell surface receptor that identifies the PAMPs, i.e., artificially mutated Pep13 of Phytophthora infestans. The experiments include - Screening the 500 Solanum accessions.- Finding responsive genotypes.- Extraction of homologues.- Analyzing the homologues.- Complementation test (ATTA).Skills acquainted:- Experimental Design- Tissue culture - Bioinformatics- Pre-breeding- Screening diverse genotypes- Cloning methods (Golden gate, HiFi DNA assembly, etc.)- MEGA, PAML, geneious prime softwares.- Managing and growing plants under greenhouse and phenotype assessment.

- Managing the financial affairs of the organization.- Preparing the budgets for each event.- Allocating the money for conducting the activities.- Internal development of the board.- Helping the students.

This is a project I am doing together with a group of international students. We are working on a plan to build an urban food production facility in Ward 7 in the Columbia district of DC, USA. My part is working within the subgroup technical. Where I work on technic and food production. With this challenge, we made it to the finals.

The beautiful world of insects and their interaction with the plants are really amazing. I worked under a great scientist Dr Bhakthavatsalam through whom I gained knowledge about volatile released during plant and insect interactions, enabling me to publish a scientific paper at the end of the project.

The RAWE is a compulsory activity where we join hands with the nearby farms to explore agricultural activities and gets hands-on training in different farm activities. This helped me interact with the farmers and know their crop cultivation and management problems. During the program period, - We were involved with the farmers to apply the right pesticides, organic fertilizers etc.- Pass on the information on the benefits of adopting the application of biofertilizers, and demonstrated its preparation and application.- Demonstrated the mushroom production steps.- Worked at the nearby government farm science centre, where we learned the type of materials needed to be sold to the farmers according to their farm problems.