Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics

Plant tissue culture: General introduction, history and scope of plant tissue culture, comparision of different plant tissue culture media, concept of totipotency, organogenesis, somatic embryogenesis (direct & indirect), callus culture and suspension culture, somaclonal variation, hardening and acclimatization of plants. 

 Protoplast culture: Isolation and culture of protoplast, somatic hybridization, hybrid selection and regeneration, concept of hybrid and cybrid, achievements and limitations of protoplast culture.                                                                                             

Transgenic plants: Concept and history of transgenesis in plants, principles and techniques of gene cloning: direct DNA transfer to plant cells, Agrobacterium mediated transformation: Ti plasmid, process of T- DNA transfer and integration, vectors, promoter, terminator, marker and reporter genes, ethical and ecological issues of transgenesis, terminator technology (GURT)

Intellectual Property Rights: Introduction of IPR, Forms of IPRs, Distinction among various IPRs; Introduction of Paris convention, WIPO, WTO and TRIPS, Indian IP system; Salient features of Patent Act, patentability requirement, prior-art search,Documents  requirement for filing an application for patent, patent publication, technology transfer, Infringements and remedies; Budapest treaty; Protection of plant variety and farmers rights Act, Convention of Biological Diversity, bio-patents, traditional knowledge, case studies – haldi, neem, basmati, GM crops and IPRs, Geographical indicators.

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Genetic engineering: Molecular tools and their applications: Restriction enzymes, c DNA and genomic library, DNA sequencing, polymerase chain reaction, DNA fingerprinting .                                                                                    

Bioinformatics: Gene bank sequence database, structure database, sequence analysis, information retrieval from biological database, NCBI data model, sequence alignment and database searching and practical aspects of multiple sequence alignment.