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Tag: biotechnology

Zhonghu He

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Zhonghu He serves as a Distinguished Scientist and Country Representative in China for CIMMYT and a Research Professor at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science. Research areas include quality improvement of Chinese products and disease resistance, molecular marker development and application, and cultivar development.

Major contributions include the development and validation of 50 functional markers, the release of 36 improved cultivars, author/coauthor of more than 400 papers in refereed journals including 180 publications in international journals, and training more than 80 postgraduates and visiting scientists.

Received the First-Class Award and Prestigious Award in Science and Technology Progress from State Council in 2008 and 2015, selected as Fellow of Crop Science Society of America in 2009 and Fellow of American Society of Agronomy in 2013, the Guanghua Award from Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2010, the China Agriculture Elite Award in 2012, and the National Labor Medal in 2020.

B.M. Prasanna

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B.M. Prasanna is a Distinguished Scientist and Regional Director for Asia at CIMMYT.

Since 2010, Prasanna, as the Global Maize Program Director, has provided technical oversight for a wide range of multi-institutional projects focused on the development and deployment of elite, stress-resilient, and nutritionally enriched maize varieties across the tropics of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has also spearheaded the application of innovative tools and technologies aimed at enhancing genetic gains and improving breeding efficiency.

Prasanna led the CGIAR Research Program MAIZE from 2015 till 2021, an alliance of over 300 research and development institutions globally. He has been at the forefront in tackling the challenges of maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in eastern Africa (since 2011), and the Fall Armyworm in Africa and Asia (since 2016 and 2018, respectively).

Together with an array of partners globally, Prasanna and the wider CGIAR team have formulated the OneCGIAR Plant Health Initiative in 2021. Prasanna is currently also serving as the Leader of the Plant Health Initiative, involving 10 CGIAR centers and over 80 national and international partners.

Recipient of several awards and recognitions, Prasanna has published over 200 research articles in various international journals of repute, and has a Scopus h-index of 46, and a Google Scholar h-index of 61.

Karim Ammar

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Karim Ammar is a principal scientist and head of durum wheat and triticale breeding at CIMMYT. He conducts a globally-focused, extensive and proactive breeding effort to produce improved germplasm of high value and relevance to collaborators worldwide.

Durum wheat profitability requires sustained gains in genetic yield potential, adaptation to a wide range of water availability and temperature conditions, durable genetic protection against major pathogens and quality attributes that allow harvests to be marketed readily.

In addition, Ammar is involved in research that widens the genetic bases of resistance to rusts and septoria diseases, develops molecular tools to select more durable resistance, enhances breeding capacity for effective drought and heat tolerance, and to diversify quality characteristics of durum wheat grain. He also focuses on improving and promoting triticale as an input saving, low production cost feed and forage option in livestock-cereals operations.

Kanwarpal S. Dhugga

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Kanwarpal Dhugga is a principal scientist specializing in biotechnology, specifically editing genes for disease resistance in maize and wheat in collaboration with DowDuPont, a company that has pioneered this technology in plants.

CRISPR-Cas9 has revolutionized the area of gene editing by altering the function of a gene in its native form in the target organism. In collaboration with DowDuPont, Dhugga and colleagues have applied this technology and fine-mapped a strong quantitative trait locus for maize lethal necrosis (MLN) resistance to a narrow interval, identifying a candidate gene for further testing. MLN has severely reduced maize grain yield in eastern Africa since 2011.

DowDuPont will edit the candidate gene directly in MLN-susceptible CIMMYT lines to validate its function and potentially deploy resistant hybrids. In wheat, Dhugga is focusing on creating the alleles for Lr67, which confers adult plant resistance against multiple rusts, directly in elite lines Reedling and Kachu.

Kevin Pixley

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Kevin Pixley is the Dryland Crops Program Director (DCP) and Wheat Program Director a.i. (GWP)

Pixley was formerly the Genetic Resources Program (GRP) director where he helped formulate, facilitate, and oversee inter-disciplinary strategies to enhance the relevance and impacts of wheat and maize research to improve livelihoods, especially for resource-poor farmers.

Pixley and his research team use genomics, phenomics and informatics to characterize and enhance the conservation and use of wheat and maize biodiversity through CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery initiative, where they explore the use of crop biodiversity to address novel opportunities, including enhanced sustainability of farming systems, improved nutritional or health outcomes or value-addition for farmers. They also look for opportunities to apply novel technologies to address needs of resource-poor farmers.

His current research includes:

1) The genomic characterization of maize and wheat germplasm bank diversity and enhancing the use of diversity in breeding

2) The use of novel breeding tools, especially gene editing, to complement traditional breeding techniques

3) The development of tools and approaches to enhance the use of genomics in teaching the use of biodiversity in plant breeding

4) The legal frameworks governing and opportunities promoting fair access and sharing of benefits from genetic resources

5) The role of provitamin A carotenoids (and other anti-oxidants) in maize grain towards reducing mycotoxin contamination of grain

6) Science and society, including how to ensure equitable opportunity for all to access the potential benefits of science