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Strengthening IPB-India research collaboration
Author: C van der Vyver
Published: 10/04/2018

As part of an ongoing South Africa-India science and technology research collaboration grant, Dr Christell van der Vyver of the Institute for Plant Biotechnology (IPB), Stellenbosch University, visited the research group of Prof Sanjib Panda of the Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics, Assam University, in Silchar, India. Dr Van der Vyver travelled to India at the end of March to attend the National Conference on BioScience and Biotechnology and to present research from her group, as an invited speaker, at the conference. The presented research falls within the collaboration theme of the awarded grant, namely “Enhancing drought tolerance in crop species using biotechnological approaches". The conference was organised by the Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics at Assam University and was attended by researchers working on all aspects of biotechnology related to plant, human and animal sciences. Dr Van der Vyver gave a presentation entitled “Enhancing sugarcane as a crop through biotechnological approaches", covering work done at the IPB related to enhancing sucrose and drought tolerance in sugarcane and to developing tools for genetic modification used for sugarcane research. Dr Van der Vyver also had the opportunity to visit the Department of Botany at Gauhati University, Guwahati, organised by Prof Panda and Prof Bhaben Tanti, where she once again presented research related to drought tolerance in sugarcane.

As part of the ongoing collaboration, Prof Panda will, in turn, visit South Africa at the end of May to assist with postgraduate research projects related specifically to transcription factors and their role in drought tolerance in sugarcane and to exchange ideas in the general field of crop improvement during abiotic stress. This will link up with ongoing and future student exchange visits between the laboratories in South Africa and India. During these exchanges, students are trained in various applicable molecular techniques and are given the opportunity to learn from fellow scientists at these two labs.

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