| CenBios |
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CenBios is our agricultural biotechnology subsidiary. It was established to exploit the potential of agro-biotechnology to address India-specific opportunities. After witnessing the tremendous contribution of GM cotton to Indian agriculture, the demand for such technology is bound to increase. |
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CenBios has established relationships with reputed national and international research organizations to conduct collaborative research in the areas of transgenics and functional plant genomics. The R&D functions at CenBios are currently structured to undertake two key programmes: transgenic and diagnostic. |
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| TRANSGENIC DIVISION |
| Focus Areas: |
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Development of biotic and abiotic stress-tolerant crop varieties. |
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Improvement of quality for commercial viability. |
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Longer shelf life. |
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| Activities: |
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Identification of new genes for new traits from in-house projects and collaborative partnerships. |
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Development of transformation and regeneration protocols. |
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Studies on transgene expression. |
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| DIAGNOSTIC DIVISION |
CENBIOS is currently developing marker-assisted selection (MAS) protocols to effectively search and locate new traits for crop improvement. MAS is especially useful for certain crop traits that are difficult or impossible to identify conventionally. |
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| Focus Areas: |
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Marker assisted breeding for complex traits especially when the genotype-environment interaction (GxE) is high, and gene pyramiding. |
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DNA finger printing of parents and hybrids for plant varietal protection. (We have so far successfully developed DNA fingerprinting patterns for several cotton and rice hybrids.) |
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Use of MAS to develop GOT protocols for crops such as cotton, rice, sunflower and okra. |
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