Tamil Nadu Agricultural University to sequence crop and microbial genomes

COIMBATORE: To strengthen and accelerate research activities in genomics and bioinformatices, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) today signed an MOU with Chennai-based Genome Life Sciences Pvt Ltd (GLS), a provider of Next General Sequencing (NGS) services, biological conent databases and data analysis products and services.

Through this MoU, GLS aims to contribute its longstanding expertise in NGS and bioinformatics by working with TNAU in various collaborative research and skill development programs and training its young faculty and students in genomics and bioinformatics through workshops, trainings and short courses.

Biotechnology is one of the breakthrough technologies of 21st Century which has potential applications in agriculture, health, industry and environmental protection and it helps to increase yield, resilience and quality of crops precisely through molecular breeding approaches in agriculture.

Among various biotech tools, genomics and bioinformatics help to accelerate development of improved crop varieties by identification of superior alleles through genome sequencing, assembly and annotation, TNAU Vice-chancellor, Dr K Ramasamy said.

Realizing the potential applications in agriculture, the university has taken up several Genomics Assisted Crop Improvement Programs towards developing stress tolerant genotypes of major crops viz. , rice, sorghum, maize, mung bean, banana, tomato, cotton Ramasamy said TNAU aims to unlock genome complexity of agriculturally important crops and microorganisms for improving the grain and food production in the State and in this effort, the university will use next generation genome sequencing and bioinformatics technology platforms, he said.

The MOU was signed in the presence of Ramasamy and GLS Chief Operating Officer, Vinoth Sankaran.