PAU Joins Collaborative Research Between India And U.K

Ludhiana, July 22, 2016: A joint “Cambridge-India Network for Translational Research in Nitrogen (CINTRIN)” has been awarded to the team of Indian and United Kingdom (UK) scientists from National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) and University of Cambridge from UK; International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad; Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana and National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi from India. This joint Centre will exploit and translate developmental biology research into innovation in nitrogen use by farmers. It will deliver a translational pipeline to produce new cereal varieties for optimized nitrogen use in agriculture. The Centre will also provide extensive training in the developmental research and translation, and generate new knowledge to optimise biological nitrogen use for sustainable agriculture.

CINTRIN has been funded by Newton Bhabha Fund, UK; Biotechnology and Biological Research Council (BBSRC), UK; and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India with a total grant of Rs 6.17 crore, provided to the Indian researchers by DBT and matching grant to UK scientists by BBSRC. Dr Tina Barsby, Director, NIAB, UK and Dr Rajeev Gupta, Principal Scientist, ICRISAT will lead respective teams of Indian and UK researchers.

Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU appreciated PAU’s strengthening of research efforts on nitrogen use efficiency in the form of CINTRIN project. He wished the researchers a successful endeavor.

Dr R.K. Gumber, Director of Research, PAU congratulated the team for bagging an International research project.

Dr Parveen Chhuneja, Senior Molecular Geneticist as Principal Investigator will spearhead the PAU research team comprising Dr Varinder Pal Singh, Senior Soil Chemist and Dr Satinder Kaur, Assistant Molecular Biologist to study the natural variation for nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in diverse germplasm of wheat’s wild relatives, taking leads from the advanced research in model plants such as Arabidopsis and Brachypodium conducted in UK. The findings will be applied to develop new breeding lines for optimum nitrogen use in wheat. CINTRIN will focus on promoting technologies such as PAU Leaf Colour Chart to ensure optimum nitrogen use at the farmer’s level to improve not only their (farmers) income and livelihood by reducing the inputs costs but also minimize the negative impacts of excessive use of fertilizers on the environment.

Dr Alison Bentley, NIAB Director of Genetics and Breeding, explained: “We want to promote a new understanding of the science associated with optimization of crop nitrogen use built on exciting discoveries in model plant species which have the potential to revolutionize the way we think about the nitrogen requirement of crops.”

He added, “The CINTRIN partners will translate developmental biology research into innovation in nitrogen use by Indian farmers, by connecting developmental research, crop breeding, agri-technology and extension work. This will be enhanced by easily accessible data-driven methods of technology transfer, developed by India and UK-based company, Kisan Hub.”