The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) organized a two-week hands-on-workshop on “Gene Cloning and Plant Transformation” under the mega project on “Climate Resilient Wheat,” jointly funded by United State Agency for International Development (USAID) and Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi. As many as 55 participants comprising young faculty, doctoral, masters and senior undergraduate students from 10 Indian universities participated in the workshop. Dr Kulvinder Gill, Project Director and a PAU alumnus, along with his staff from Washington State University; and Dr Johar Singh, Senior Wheat Breeder and Project Investigator from PAU, conducted the workshop. Experts from Washington State University also delivered lectures through video conferencing and interacted with the participants. The workshop involved two discussion sessions with focus on theory behind various experiments with the remaining time devoted to experiments around gene cloning, transformation, DNA analysis and genotyping. The workshop was very intense with the participants working as late as 2-3 a.m.

Addressing the participants, Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, advised them to work hard in a focused manner.

Dr N.S. Bains, Director of Research, and Dr V.S. Sohu, Senior Wheat Breeder, also interacted with the participants.

Dr D.S. Brar, Adjunct Professor, School of Agricultural Biotechnology, encouraged the participants to aim for competence and excellence. Later, he proposed the vote of thanks.

The workshop will be followed by additional experiments with the objective to accomplish predetermined experiments and publish the results in good international journals.