Bioinformatic Applications in Crop Improvement: A Compendium for the Plant Biotechnologist

This book offers a comprehensive overview of plant bioinformatics, encompassing biochemical, genetic and molecular tools available with a focused emphasis on genomic, transcriptome and proteome analysis. It also presents the agro-ecological and evolutionary aspects of utilizing plant bioinformatics tools with exclusive focus on newer paradigms such as climate change and systems biology in crop improvement. Furthermore, the book will extend the theoretical aspects as a base towards real world applications, namely, the biotechnological approaches to develop superior plant varieties including specific examples of transgenic methodologies in model plants.

Dr. Chandrakanth Emani is an Associate professor of plant molecular biology at the Western Kentucky University. His current research funded by the National Science Foundation-EPSCoR program involves the utility of plant-based pharmaceutical compounds as integrative treatment options for cancer, plant bioinformatics aimed at plant molecular evolution and phytoremediation strategies to reclaim cultivable land near oil fields. Dr. Emani has a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from Pune University, India and a PhD in Genetics and Plant Molecular Biology from Osmania University, India. During his doctoral research, he was a Junior Research Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation and a doctoral fellow of the Hindustan Ciba-Geigy (presently Syngenta). He pursued research in plant genetic engineering as a post-doctoral fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation at the Norman Borlaug Center of Texas A&M University where he worked on plant genetic transformation of sorghum, rice and cotton. A multi-collaborative research project at Texas A&M University involving plant molecular promoters from rice and sugarcane resulted in eleven patents from the USPTO (5), European patent office (2), Brazilian Patent office (2) and World Intellectual Organization (2). Dr. Emani served as a membership committee chapter officer of the Sigma Xi Texas A&M Chapter and is the current President of the Sigma Xi chapter of the Western Kentucky University.