Debabrata Basu
Senior Lecturer, Botany
PhD: University of Calcutta (1993)

Research interest

Crop improvement for the cause of both increase in yield and quality are the most relevant area to meet the demand for food in the new millennium. In this aspect increase in crop production by minimizing the yield loss due to various types of biotic stresses are one of the priority area where our research interest have been focused. Availability of genes having the ability of influencing important biological trait are the major constrains in this direction for its ultimate application in development of transgenic plant with desired character. So, one of our major efforts have been directed towards identification and isolation of new genes involved in the signal transduction pathway of interaction between plant and compatible pathogen. In this direction functional genomics approaches has been initiated for identification of genes from both homologous and heterologous sources for development of broad-spectrum resistant crop plant against incompatible pathogens by suitable engineering of the plants own defense mechanism.

Name of Group Members

• Smt. Sanjukta Dey

Important publications (seven)

1. Basu, D., Dehesh, K., Schneider-Poetsch, H. J., Harrington, S. E., McCouch, S. R. and Quail, P. H. 2000. Rice PHYC gene: structure, expression, map position and evolution. Plant Mol. Biol. 44: 27-42.
2. Nandi, A., Basu, D., Das, S and Sen, S. K. 1999. High level expression of soybean trypsin inhibitor gene in transgenic tobacco plants failed to confer resistance against damage caused by Helicoverpa armigera. J. Biosci. 24: 445-452.
3. Nayak, P., Basu, D., Das, S., Basu, A., Ghosh, D., Ramkrishnan, N. A., Ghosh, M and Sen, S. K. 1997. Transgenic elite indica rice plants expressing cryIA(c) delta-endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis are resistant against yellow stem borer (Sirpophaga incertula). Porc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 92:2111-2116.
4. Kar, S., Basu, D., Das, S., Ramkrishnan, N. A., Mukherjee, P., Nayak, P and Sen, S. K. 1996. Expression of cryIA(c) gene of Bacillus thuringiensis in transgenic chickpea plants inhibits development of pod-borer (Heliothis armigera) larvae. Transgenic Research. 6:177-185.
5. Basu, D., Das, S., Nayak, P and Sen, S. K. 1995. Monitoring functional property of the transgene through rapid amplification of cDNA ends in indica rice transformants. Current  Science  68:1140-1144.
6. Das, S., Basu, D., Mukherjee, P and Sen, S. K. 1991. Interaction of T-DNA border sequences and Ti-plasmid vir functions of   Agrobacterium results in differential single-stranded linear T-DNA molecule production and plant transformation. Indian. J. Exp. Biol. 29:991-1001.
7. Basu, D., Das, S., Bandyopadhyay, D and Sen, S. K. 1991. Isolation and cloning of Bacillus thuringiensis var kurstaki HD73 toxin gene and construction of a chimeric gene for expression in plants. Indian. J. Exp. Biol. 29: 1002- 1009.