Sampa Das
Senior Lecturer, Plant Molecular & Cellular Genetics
PhD: University of Calcutta (Botany - 1981).

Research interest and current activities
  • Expression of agronomically important genes in crop plants.
  • Identification, characterisation and purification of few insecticidal Lectins and other proteins from plant sources.
  • Isolation and cloning of effective insecticidal lectin and other protein coding gene(s) from respective plant genome(s).
  • Establishment of efficient plant regeneration and transformation protocol for mustard, chickpea and pigeonpea.
  • Introgression of insecticidal protein coding genes into above crop varieties.
Past research work
  • Construction of a number of vectors with different T-DNA border elements for a better understanding of mechanism of T-DNA integration into host plant.
  • Construction of chimeric Bt , protease inhibitor gene (s) and other agronomically important gene(s) constructs for their expression in important crops namely, rice and mustard for increased productivity.
Name of group members
  • Ms. Krishna Ray
  • Dr. Biswajit Das (jointly with Prof. Lahiri Majumder)
  • Mr. Santanu Bandyopadhyay
  • Mr. Indrajit Datta
  • Mr. Pralay Majumder
Important publications (eleven)
  1. Isolation of yeast ascospores free of vegetative cell contamination. A. Chatterjee, S.Ghosh, S. Das & S.K. Sen. J. General Microbiology 128 : 2725-2278 (1982).
  2. Transposon induced mutagenesis of Ri plasmids of Agrobacterium rhizogenes and alteration of hairy root syndrome of the transformed plant tissue. S. Das, C. Bhowmik & S.K. Sen. Ind. J. Exptl. Biol. 25 : 371 (1987).
  3. Meiotic developmental features relevant to prophase specific chromosomal characteristics in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. S.K. Sen, S. Das, A. Banerjee, N. Jasani, M. Shah & S. Ghosh. In Trends in Chromosome Research, Springer-Verlag, pp.222(1988)
  4. 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 S. Das, D. Basu, P. Mukherjee & S.K. Sen. Ind. J. Exptl. Biol. 29 : 991-1001 (1991).
  5. Isolation and cloning of Bacillus thuringiensis var. Kurstaki HD-73 toxin gene and construction of a chimeric gene for expression in plants. D. Basu, S. Das, D. Banerjee & S.K. Sen. Ind. J. Exptl. Biol. 29 : 1002-1009 (1991).
  6. Mechanism of DS1 excision from the genome of maize streak virus. W.H. Shen, S. Das. B. Hohn. Mol. Gen. Genet. 233(3) : 388-394 (1992).
  7. Monitoring functional property of the transgene through rapid amplification of cDNA ends in indica rice transformants. D. Basu. S. Das, P. Nayak and S.K. Sen. Current Science, Vol.68.No.11, 1140-1144 (1995).
  8. Transfer of yellow stem borer resistance to indica rice cultivar. , P. Nayak, D. Basu, S. Das, D. Ghosh, A. Nandi, A. Basu and S.K. Sen. In Rice Genetics III (IRRI), 735- 736, (1996).
  9. Expression of crylA(c) gene of Bacillus thuringiensis in transgenic chickpea plants inhibits development pod borer Heliothis armigera larvae. S. Kar. D. Basu, S. Das, Ramakrishnan N.A., P. Mukherjee, P. Nayak and S.K. Sen. Transgen res 6,177-185 (1997).
  10. Transgenic elite indica rice plants expressing crylA(c) delta endotoxin in Bacillus thuringiensis are resistant against yellow stem borer (Scirpophaga incertulas). P. Nayak. D. Basu, S. Das. A. Basu, D. Ghosh. Ramakrishnan, N.A., M. Ghosh and S.K. Sen. Proc.. Natl. Acad.Sci. 94,2111-2116 (1997).
  11. High level expression of Soyabean trypsin inhibitor gene in transgenic Tobacco plants failed to confer resistance against damage caused by Helicoverpa armigera. A.K. Nandi, D.Basu, S.Das, S.K.Sen, J. Biosc., 24(4), 445-452 (1999)
Contact

sampa@bic.boseinst.ernet.in, sampa_d@hotmail.com
Phone: (+91)(-33) 335-0560, 351-0345 (R)