Tomato gene bank inaugurated at UoH

Adding one more feather to the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, a gene bank to help research in Tomato was inaugurated by Prof K Vijaya Raghavan, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology (DBT) on Monday. The research facility will work like seed banks at ICRISAT in Hyderabad or ICAR at New Delhi.

The Repository of Tomato Genomic Resources (RTGR) building as it is named is yet another subject-specific research centre after CR Rao Statistical Centre in the UoH premises.Delivering a lecture on the occasion, Prof. Vijay Raghavan expressed anguish at the pace of research work in various areas today. “There is competence without comprehension, neglect and fear to embark on new trajectories. There is need to merge individual and institutional agendas. There is a need to intellectually drive ourselves to keep pace with the changing world” he felt.

According to Prof Sarma, who has been part of research on Tomato genes, RTGR has been built to house the genomic resources and continue the research for tomato functional genomics and metabolomics. “The major aim of RTGR is functional characterisation of all tomato genes through the use of mutants, allelic variation, expression profiling (at metabolite, protein and gene levels) and other methods. The RTGR is using the above resources to improve the nutraceutical quality of tomato fruits and shelf life” he said. Nearly seven acre land at the new building is earmarked for growing tomato plants.

An international initiative was started in 2004 to sequence the tomato genome with a scientific network named “International Solanaceae Genome Project” (SOL). The DBT supported Indian SOL programme and for phase , it sanctioned Rs 20 crores to UoH for isolation of tomato mutants using reverse genetic tools to generate genomic resources and provide the gene specific mutant lines to scientific community.