Education
B.S. - 1977 G. B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, India, Major: Plant Protection
M.S. - 1980 G. B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, India, Major: Plant Pathology
Ph.D. - 1989 University of Maine, Orono, Maine, Major: Molecular Virology
Field
Plant-microbe interactions
Interests
Research interests include basic and applied aspects of plant - microbe interactions; fungal genetics, plant and fungal molecular virology. Long term goals include isolation and characterization of virus genes; production of transgenic plants and identify extra-chromosomal genetic elements from economically important plant viruses and plant pathogenic fungi, their role in conferring race specificity, pathogenicity and or hypovirulence, and potential use of specific cloned nucleic acid sequences from hypovirulent strains in the biological control of the fungus.
Current research projects include
Characterization and molecular analysis of the genome of the Tomato Mosaic virus (ToMV) using reverse transcription PCR.
Comparative analysis of DNA homology to establish taxonomic relationships of fungi. The specific genes, total nuclear DNS, and or plasmids of various species or isolates could be compared by sequencing or nucleic acid hybridization.
Past experience with Rhizoctonia solani system suggests that transposable elements (Ty) exist in plant pathogenic fungi, and they could be involved in the activation and inactivation of genes for pathogenicity, or race specificity. Filamentous fungi generally contain small fraction of repetitive sequences, which are primarily composed of genes for rDNA, but which also include Ty elements. If the homology that exists between Ty elements in yeast and some higher eukaryotes is general, it will be possible to detect these elements in filamentous fungi by searching for homology between the non-ribosomal repetitive DNA and a cloned Ty element. Alternatively, since chromosomal location of at least some copies of Ty will differ among individuals, such elements could be detected by RFLPs.
Publications
