My current assignment is exciting which is a combo of physiology, genetics and genomics of A. helleri plant which is daring in nature and selected his habitat a highly heavy metal contaminated soil. I am hopeful to find its adaptation to the local soil composition. What are the offers in this assignment? 》Collected A. helleri plants from its natural habitat and managing them in greenhouse.》Selected plants for whole genome sequencing and controlled condition phenotyping.》Strategically phenotyping this collection for metal tolerance and hyperaccumulation under controlled conditions in an intensive experiment with various replications.》Extracted DNA of ~1000 plants from our biodiversity collection, prepared Illumina libraries (TruSeq PCR free) for NovaSeq sequencing and currently analysing the data.》Currently busy in WGS sequence data analysis to find SNPs and Read-Depth variants for association mapping (GWAS/eQTL/TWAS) using environmental data (rhizosphere soil pH, soil mineral composition, leaf mineral composition in the field, climate data) to identify candidate causal polymorphisms underlying gene functions and functional networks.》To decipher genetic architecture of metal hyperaccumulation and tolerance in A. helleri would be my top priority.

This GeWiDis multi-institutional project (INRA, KWS, Biogemma & Terres Inovia) was an absolute combination of breeding, diseases genetics and genomics in oilseed rape where we performed a comparative analysis of structural organization and allelic diversity of resistance factors to most important diseases of oilseed rape (Brassica napus) in diverse Brassica materials and to optimize the strategy of breeding multi-resistant varieties through the exploitation of a wide genetic diversity.》As a leading centre, I have managed all the disease data acquired on different types of Brassica genetic materials i.e. B. napus germplasm, tri-genomic semi-synthetic families and B. olaracea germplasm from various partners.》Participated in oilseed field trials from execution and implementation to recording observations of diseases data.》I have analysed all the oilseed rape disease data (Sclerotinia, Verticillium, Blackleg and Clubroot) and made best model fit to be used for QTL, GWAS and genomic prediction.》Analysed all the genomics data from various brassica genetic materials which posed many challenges as they differed in linkage disequilibrium (LD) and genomic structure.》Identified some most efficient multi-disease resistance genomic regions using various kinds of GWAS, and QTL methods which are best suited for further breeding to improve the oilseed rape genetic materials.》I presented the progress and outcomes at various level meetings between partners.》The work has been published in high impact journals.

Project Title: Physical Mapping and Sample Sequencing of Wheat Chromosome 2A – International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC)• Super interesting project from many perspectives such as high-throughput core wet-lab techniques and to feed the wet-lab outcomes in superbly designed bioinformatics tools. • Our team fingerprinted a whole BAC library containing 60,000 clones using High Information Content Fingerprinting (HICF) which includes SNaPShot Labeling method to label restriction digested fragments of BAC clones and analysing them using ABI3730xl machine. • We successfully generated a fingerprint based physical map and FPC and LTC results have been submitted to wheat URGI database. • Few months later, the results have been published as a consortium in the Science journal.

I worked as a Senior Research Fellow in the NAIP funded project "Bioprospecting of genes and allele mining for abiotic stress resistance " with Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra . In this project, I've worked on genome wide association study (GWAS) in rice for salinity and drought tolerance, and published the research in DNA Research (Oxford Journal). For association mapping, we have designed a custom array of 6000 SNPs selected from stress responsive genes, and genotyped and phenotyped rice germplasm panel. I've worked on several other objectives in this project such as validation of differentially expressed genes (quantitative and semi-quantitative PCA) from a microarray analysis of drought tolerant and susceptible rice genotypes. I was also a part of the team working on phenotypic data collection for drought and salinity, and mini-core development.

I've worked as a senior research in the project “Seed Production in Agricultural Crops” which was proposed to instantly test the genetic purity of the certified seed lots which did not meet the criteria of minimum seed certification standard for genetic seed purity. In this attempt, hybrids and parental lines of pearl millet, moth bean and cotton were assessed using molecular markers vis-à-vis growouttest (GOT).

I worked as Senior Research Fellow in this project “Implementation of protection of plant varieties and farmer’s right legislation” with Dr. S. N. Sharma, Prof and Incharge, Seed Technology Research, Agricultural Research Station, Durgapura, Jaipur (Rajasthan). Under the project, Indian cultivated sesame (Sesamum indicum) genotypes were characterized phenotypically using DUS characteristics and through molecular markers such as RAPDs, ISSRs and SSRs. I've managed sesame crop filed trials containing diverse germplasm to characterize for important morpho-physiological characteristics for three consecutive years. I've done my Ph.D. thesis work from this project.