Genetically Modified (GM) plants are contributing to many areas of industry, including increased crop production and enhanced food quality in agriculture; production of monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic proteins, and edible vaccines for the pharmaceutical industry and environment-friendly outputs such as biodegradable plastics. Sugarcane can turn out to be an ‘Ideal Plant Biofactory’ for producing plastic, silk, higher value carbohydrates, therapeutic proteins and antibodies.

With the development of recombinant DNA technology, breeders have access to a large number of genes that can be integrated into the plant genome and transfer of DNA within or across the species in vitro to develop “Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)”. Agrobacterium mediated and Biolistic methods of gene transfer are using in our lab to develop transgenic sugarcane to address the issue of disease and pest resistance. The putative transgenic plants that are developed will be tested and evaluated using PCR, Southern blot hybridization, Western blot, ELISA and bio-assay.