Plant & Marine Biotechnology

About

As part of Biotechnology/ Microbiology/ Bioinformatics curriculum, the students in their last semester (BSc as well as MSc), address the various problems facing the agricultural systems.

Under the ambit of Plant Biotechnology, we work towards enabling plants to overcome biotic and abiotic stress conditions.

Recent studies by us focused on assessing soil nutrient profile to showcase how global warming has altered the climate as well as the soil composition indirectly in the state of Kerala. Our study shows how organic carbon has decreased in the soil along with nitrogen thus impacting agricultural output. To combat nutrient deficiency in plants we addressed this using a Nanobiotechnology approach, by employing biogenic iron oxide nanoparticles as a nano-fertilizer. These biogenic Iron oxide nanoparticles (FeNp) were synthesised and characterized from seaweed Chaetomorpha ssp. The alleviation of abiotic stress (drought, salinity, arsenic) in plants by employing the same biogenic iron oxide nanoparticles (FeNp) has also been successfully undertaken. Nano-phytoremediation using the same nanoparticles harnesses the properties of the benign nanoparticles as well as the innate ability of plants to degrade and metabolize the pollutants present in the environment.