PAU hosts Fulbright specialist from USA for genome editing workshop

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 22

A workshop on ‘Advances in Genome Editing Tools’ commenced with an inaugural ceremony at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). The ceremony, graced by distinguished personalities including PAU Vice-Chancellor Dr Satbir Singh Gosal and Dr Bing Yang, professor from the College of Agriculture, University of Missouri, USA, marked the beginning of a ten-day workshop running from April 22 to May 1. The event saw notable attendees from the university’s administration, subject experts, faculty members and students.

Dr Bing Yang, conducting the workshop under the Fulbright Specialist Program at PAU’s School of Agricultural Biotechnology, shed light on the research focus of the Yang Laboratory. Their work primarily revolves around unravelling the molecular intricacies of host disease susceptibility and resistance to pathogenic microbes, with a particular emphasis on bacterial blight in rice crops. Furthermore, they specialise in developing and applying genome editing technologies to discover genes and traits and engineer improved traits such as disease resistance in crop plants.

Explaining the genome editing technologies, Dr Yang said these have emerged as promising tools for scientists to comprehend complex genomes and precisely manipulate them. Notably, TALENs and CRISPR/Cas stand as the state-of-the-art genome editing technologies, offering immense potential in defining genetic and molecular bases for valuable traits and facilitating the introgression of desired genes and traits into cultivated varieties efficiently and economically.

Dr Yang elucidated the utility of genome editing in identifying problematic pathogens in bacteria, thereby aiding in understanding pathogen functions and devising strategies to combat widespread infections that adversely affect crop yields.

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