Abstract

Emerging Challenges of Plant Science for Crop Improvement

Author(s): Balaji Vasudevan

Balaji Vasudevan is currently Plant Pathology/Plant Biology Lead at GreenLight Biosciences, Inc located in RTP, NC, USA. He earned his Master of Science in Plant Biotechnology in Chennai, India in 1994, and his Ph.D. in Plant Biotechnology from Madurai Kamaraj University, India in 2002, working with Prof. Karuppannan Veluthambi. In his thesis work, he developed transformation and regeneration system for black gram (urad bean, Vigna mungo), improved Agrobacterium- mediated transformation efficiency in rice and black gram by manipulating binary vectors with key Agrobacterium vir genes, cloned, sequenced, molecular characterized DNA B of a geminivirus Mung bean yellow mosaic virus-Vigna (MYMV-Vig), developed agroinfection based viral assays, identified and showed key viral gene targets for pathogen derived resistance to MYMV-Vig. His Ph.D. research was published in 5 international journals After completing his Ph.D., Vasudevan went on to do his post-doctoral studies at Tel-Aviv University in the lab of Guido Sessa on molecular dissection of plant-bacterial interactions with an aim to identify disease resistance genes.