24 Sep 2018|Noida | E2 Auditorium
Amity Institute of Microbial Technology celebrates its 14th Foundation Day
AmityInstitute of Microbial Technology celebrates its 14th Foundation Day
Amity Institute of Microbial Technology (AIMT) celebrated its “14th Foundation Day” at Amity Campus, Sector-125, Noida.
Welcoming the august gathering, Dr. Ajit Varma- Vice Chairman, Amity Science,Technology and Innovation Foundation and Distinguished Scientist, Amity Institute of Microbial Technology (AIMT) shared a brief report about the programmes offered by the Institute, placement record, National and International workshops organized by the Institute, various R&D initiatives, Patents filed and research papers published by scientists and faculty members. He apprised about “Rootonic- the Magic Fungus”- a unique innovative product developed by him and his researchers which aids in early seed germination, provides resistance against diseases, improves soil fertility and boost the growth of the plant.
Briefing about ‘Current Status of Malaria Vaccine Development’, Dr. Deepak Gaur ,Professor and Group Leader, Laboratory of Malaria & Vaccine Research Schoolof Biotechnology, Jawahar Lal Nehru University apprised that World Health Organization has estimated around 216 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2016. More than half a million deaths due to malaria are of children below 5 years of age and 90 percent deaths happen in Africa particularly. He lamented that no malaria vaccines are yet available and the current malaria strategies are limited to vector control methods such as insecticide treatedbed nets, residual house spraying etc. He emphasized upon developing of a safe,effective and affordable malaria vaccine. Dr. Gaur highlighted about the problems in developing malaria vaccines including lack of predictive animalmodels, complex biology since parasite takes different invasive forms and lack of complete understating of malaria immunity. He further informed about the malaria vaccine development at International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), JNU wherein the research is being conducted to develop blood stage vaccines for preventing the system at the prelim level itself.
Dr.Ramesh V. Sonti, Director, National Institute of Plant Genome Research apprised about development of a disease resistant rice variety. He mentioned that bacterial blight (BB) is a serious rice disease and farmers don’t have any solution to prevent crop from being affected by the bacteria. He stressed that effective bactericides are not available for controlling the disease. The scientists worked on developing rice cultivators that contain multiple gene for bacterial blight resistance. He further added that various sample strains were collected from different locations between 1993 and 1997. Genetic grouping of strains of the BB pathogen was done using DNA fingerprinting methods and pathological testing. He shared that effectiveness of various rice resistance genes against the strains against the collected strains were tested and two varieties of rice were found to be effective. Dr. Sonti talked about samba mahsuri rice variety in which BB resistance genes were successfully introduced without causing loss to it’s unique quality and yield characteristics.
During the occasion, students of AIMT presented mesmerizing cultural performances.