Dr. Amjad Masood Husaini is Assistant Professor /Jr. Scientist (PBG) in Rice Research &Regional Station, SKUAST-K and is currently engaged in rice improvement using modern breeding & biotechnological tools. He has obtained Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi and a PG Diploma in Bioinformatics too. He has the distinction of being awarded “Junior Scientist of The Year 2007 Award” by National Environmental Science Academy, New Delhi. He has excelled in NET (Life Sciences) of CSIR and NET (Agricultural Biotechnology) of ICAR, being among the top position holders, and won Gold and Silver for his presentations in several seminars/conferences.
Dr. Amjad Masood Husaini has been actively persuing the hybrid rice development for Kashmir conditions and tailoring of new high yielding, disease resistant rice varities through hybridization between indica and japonica sub-species using wide compatible source as bridge. He has also been associated with Germplasm evaluation and field testing of rice accessions procured from Directorate of Rice Research, Hyderabad and International Rice Research Institute, Phillipines.
He has published quality research papers in national and international journals of repute, on different aspects of agricultural biotechnology. He has conducted successful transformation of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch) with gus gene, using Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA 4404 containing pBI 121 as a binary vector and has successfully developed salinity-tolerant transgenic strawberry overexpressing osmotin gene of Nicotiana tabacum.

RESEARCH INTEREST
Xenobiotic detoxification/ bioremediation with transgenic plants is the prime research problem that fascinates me. Interest in bioremediation of land using plants is of special significance because the capital costs and the operational costs of using plants for bioremediation are several times lesser than the use of equal amount of bacterial biomass and the implementation is easy and non-invasive. Unfortunately most plants lack the versatility that enables microorganisms to detoxify a wide variety of xenobiotic compounds. Therefore, I am interested in ‘digging out’ a potential candidate gene from microbial source and transfer it into a suitable plant for its over-expression, using Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer technology. This approach will combine the most suitable plant for the task with over-expression of a high capacity metal uptake transporter. I have several potential plants in mind and the most suitable among these is mustard (Brassica juncea) because of its rapid biomass production and higher capacity to accumulate lead, strontium, cesium, chromium, nickel and cadmium. There are a few good candidate genes that can be targeted into this plant to enhance its metal mopping capacity and am therefore interested in developing such transgenic mustard plants.

In my opinion, textbook depictions of metabolism as rigid pathways do not accurately reflect the dynamic nature of plant metabolism and this static picture limits our understanding of the function of genes and their protein products. As sessile organisms, plants require a tremendously flexible metabolism to allow them to adapt to, and withstand changing environmental conditions. This requirement for flexibility and adaptability is reflected in the presence of gene families in plant genomes; individual members of the same gene family fulfill subtly different roles. I am therefore interested in using proteomic and reverse genetic approaches to identify and functionally characterize this defense network in plants. At the metabolic level, I am interested in developing metabolic flux maps and link them to transcriptomic and proteomic changes so as to generate a systematic picture of the regulatory hierarchy that controls metabolism during stress.
Furthermore, I am interested in using computational methods to explore the relationship between structure and function in stress proteins. Computer simulations allow proteins to ‘come alive’ and hence help to explore the relationship between (static) structure and dynamic function.
My long-term research goal is to generate a more complete picture of the way in which changes in gene expression adjust and control the metabolic network to suit the prevailing conditions.

This is a interesting journal to whom are interested in published papers about agriculture and agronomy on different subjects

SCIENTIA AGRICOLA is a Journal of the University of São Paulo, Campus "Luiz de Queiroz" - Piracicaba, SP, Brazil that publishes original articles contributing to the scientific development of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The Journal has a broad spectrum, including Crop and Animal Production, Agricultural Engineering, Economics and Sociology, Agroindustrial Technology, Forestry, Environmental and Soil Sciences, and Applications of Basic Sciences in Agriculture.

It is indexed in Current Contents®/Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences, Science Citation Index Expanded (SciSearch®), CAB Abstracts, SciELO, AGRIS, AGROBASE, Chemical Abstracts, INIS and Tropag & Rural. The articles submitted to the Journal must be original, with no simultaneous submission to other periodicals. Notes, Point of View and Letters to the Editor may also be submitted for publication. Reproductions are permitted only with indication of the source.

See our informations in the SciELO's site
http://www.esalq.usp.br/scientia/

Dear WAYSers,

Good day. I am working on the Agriculture volume of GLOBAL TEXT PROJECT,

Those who like to contribue kindly contact me,

Balasubramanian Ramani
balamarch13@yahoo.com

Thanks much,

Best
Bala R