The workshop covered the worldwide regulatory status of genome edited crops with special emphasis to India
A 5-day Hands-on Laboratory Course on CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing was organized by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, New Delhi at the SGT University campus, Gurugram in collaboration with ICAR institutes – National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack; National Institute of Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, and the DBT’s National Agri-food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali, from March 23 -27, 2021. The workshop had 14 offline and 128 online participants from various parts of the country. The faculty included eminent scientists from reputed international institutions such as International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Tanzania; University of Maryland, USA; University of California, USA; and Corteva Agriscience, USA in addition to the key national institutes like IARI, New Delhi and CSIR- Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi.
The workshop covered broadly the following topics as theory and practical sessions: Efficient sgRNA designing for knocking out genes; multiplex editing; epigenome editing and single base editing; gRNA synthesis using PCR and in vitro transcription and determination of their in vitro efficiency; Plant transformation with GE reagents and regeneration; Screening, detection, and validation of mutant plants; Assessing off-target mutations and their relevance in plants, and worldwide regulatory status of genome edited crops with special emphasis to India. A special session was devoted to human/mammalian cell line transfection with GE reagents by Dr Debojyoti Chakraborty of CSIR-IGIB.
The workshop participants revealed that the knowledge gained by them was extremely useful and helped them develop an understanding of the basic concepts for use of this powerful technology in various applications in agriculture, particularly for developing climate resilient and nutritionally-enriched crops. Workshop participants with Prof. K C Bansal, Course Director and Dr. J C Rana, Guest of Honour; flanked by Dean Dr Ashok Kumar, Course Coordinator Dr. Kutubuddin Molla, ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack and Convener, Dr Sonia Goel of SGT University, Gurugram
