HT Correspondent
JORHAT, April 4: Assam Agricultural University dean Professor Jayanta Deka emphasised on the importance of applying biotechnological methods to develop variety of tolerance to various stresses and to mitigate the challenges faced by the farmers due to the change in the climatic conditionDeka was speaking at the inaugural function of a five-day national workshop-cum training on ‘Advanced Biotechnology Knowledge and Skills for Research and Innovation’ at the Assam Agricultural University, Borbheta on Monday.The workshop which will be held from April 4 to 8 was inaugurated by the dean, Faculty of Agriculture, and the chief guest of the workshop, Professor Jayanta Deka.An AAU official informed that the workshop-cum training programme has been organised by the DBT-Northeast Centre for Agricultural Biotechnology (DBT-NECAB) with support from the Centre as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, under the chairmanship of professor and director of DBT-NECAB, Bidyut Kumar Sarmah.Thirty researchers from various institutions of the north-east region are attending the programme while over 70 attendees from across the country were joining virtually, the official stated.In his welcome address, Professor Sarmah said that Indian biotechnologists had contributed significantly during the pandemic by developing vaccines against the Covid virus, which was a testament that biotechnology can help save lives of many.He also highlighted that GM varieties developed using biotechnology tools have contributed immensely to protecting crops from various stresses and modern genome editing techniques have the potential to generate climate-smart crops, the official stated.The head of the department of Biotechnology, AAU, and co-chairman of the workshop, Professor Mahendra K Modi, delivering his speech, stressed on learning data science to use powerful computational and statistical methods to decode the functional information hidden in DNA sequences.The coordinator of the workshop, Dr Sumita Acharjee, in her address, stated that the workshop was aimed to help participants gain innovative ideas and new research skills so that they could conduct innovative research and contribute toward India’s mission to become Aatmanirbhar, the official stated.
