Book description
An up-to-date overview of current progress in improving crop quality
and quantity using modern methods. With a particular emphasis on genetic
engineering, this text focusses on crop improvement under adverse
conditions, paying special attention to such staple crops as rice,
maize, and pulses.
Improving Crop Productivity in Sustainable Agriculture
includes an excellent mix of specific examples, such as the creation of
nutritionally-fortified rice and a discussion of the political and
economic implications of genetically engineered food.
The result is a must-have hands-on guide, ideally suited for the
biotechnology and agro industries including agricultural scientists,
students of agriculture, plant breeders, plant physiologists, botanists
and biotechnologists. Dr. Narendra Tuteja did his M. Sc., Ph. D and D.
Sc. in Biochemistry from the Lucknow University in 1977, 1982 and 2008,
respectively. He is fellow of the Academies of Sciences: FNASc. (2003),
FNA (2007), FASc. (2009) and FNESA (2009).
Dr. Tuteja has made major contributions in the field of plant DNA
replication and abiotic stress signal transduction, especially in
isolating novel DNA/RNA helicases and several components of calcium and
G-proteins signaling pathways. Initially he made pioneer contributions
in isolation and characterization of large number of helicases from
human cells while he was at ICGEB Trieste and published several papers
in high impact journals including EMBO J. and Nucleic Acids Research.
From India he has cloned the first plant helicase (Plant J. 2000) and
presented the first direct evidence for a novel role of a pea DNA
helicase (PNAS, USA, 2005) in salinity stress tolerance and pea
heterotrimeric G-proteins (Plant J. 2007) in salinity and heat stress
tolerance. Dr. Tuteja has reported the first direct evidence in plant
that PLC functions as an effector for Ga subunit of G-proteins. All the
above work has received extensive coverage in many journals, including
Nature Biotechnology, and bulletins all over the world. His group has
also discovered novel substrate (pea CBL) for pea CIPK (FEBS J. 2006).
He has already developed the salinity tolerant tobacco and rice plants
without affecting yield. Recently, few new high salinity stress tolerant
genes (e. g. Lectin receptor like kinase, Chlorophyll a/b binding
protein and Ribosomal L30E) have been isolated from Pisum sativum and
have been shown to confer high salinity stress tolerance in bacteria and
plant (Glycoconjugate J. 2010; Plant Signal. Behav. 2010). Recently,
very high salinity stress tolerant genes from fungus Piriformospora
indica have been isolated and their functional validation in fungus and
plants is in progress. Overall, Dr. Tuteja?s research uncovers three new
pathways to plant abiotic stress tolerance. His results are an important
success and indicate the potential for improving crop production at
sub-optimal conditions.
Dr. Sarvajeet Singh Gill did his B. Sc. (1998) from Kanpur University
and M. Sc. (2001, Gold Medalist), M. Phil. (2003) and Ph. D (2009) from
Aligarh Muslim University.
Dr. Gill has several research papers, review articles and book chapters
to his credit in the journals of national and international repute and
in edited books. He has co-edited four books namely Sulfur assimilation
and Abiotic Stress in Plants; Eutrophication: causes, consequences and
control; Plant Responses to Abiotic Stress, and Abiotic Stress Tolerance
published by Springer-Verlag (Germany), IK International, New Delhi, and
Bentham Science Publishers, respectively. He was awarded Junior
Scientist of the year award by National Environmental Science Academy
New Delhi in 2008.
Presently with Dr. Tuteja, Dr. Gill is working on heterotrimeric G
proteins and plant DNA helicases to uncover the abiotic stress tolerance
mechanism in rice. The transgenic plants overexpressing heterotrimeric G
proteins and plant DNA helicases may be important for improving crop
production at sub-optimal conditions.
