Today’s investment in Biosciences will be vital for protecting interests of humankind in future

With a continuous vision to create exclusive internationalization learning exposure for Faculty Members and Students at AUH, Office of International Affairs at Amity University, Gurugram, Haryana, organized yet another session of the International Expert Talk Series (IETS) that hosts eminent academicians as speakers from leading premier universities across the globe. Under the great leadership and mentoring of the Chancellor Dr. Aseem Chauhan, AUH continues to take bigger and bigger strides in the sphere of comprehensive internationalization.  

Vice Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) PB Sharma expressed his profound happiness over presence of Dr. Ranjan Swarup, Renowned Expert- Hormone Regulated Root Development, Associate Professor, University of Nottingham, UK at the webinar and congratulated him for all the exceptional achievements that he has made in this field. He also emphasised that at Amity University Gurugram, great importance is given to research in biosciences and that there are several high-quality research clusters working in this area.

At the webinar titled, “Role of Auxin Influx Carriers in Plant Development”, Dr. Ranjan Swarup elucidated about various plant growth hormones (auxins) and their contribution to regulate root development and their impact on overall plant growth and development. "Plants have a specific set of hormones, auxins and gibberellins, that regulate development of root and the shoot, respectively. Development of healthy roots, with more numbers of secondary roots, will naturally provide more nutrients to the plant, which would help grow healthy plants with better stem, fruits and leaves, quantitatively as well as qualitatively.

Therefore, development of ways by which we induce healthy root formation would increase plant productivity”, he mentioned.
Dr. Swarup studies hormone regulated root development and its impact on above ground physiology of the plants.  Towards this, he examines the role of auxins in root development process.  Auxin is a key plant hormone regulating various aspects of plant growth and development.  Dr. Swarup is studying the role of AUX/LAX gene family that encodes high affinity auxin transporters which facilitate auxin transport, are located on the plasma membrane (PM).  He also provided evidence that AUX1 PM localisation is mediated by AXR4. Further, he showed that auxin influx carriers are required for low Phosphorus mediated root hair elongation response in Arabidopsis and rice.  He also presented his recent findings rice homolog of AXR4.  Given that better root development in plants would improve plant health and productivity, Dr. Swarup`s work has significant implications. As mentioned before, inducing healthy root formation could increase productivity of the plants, therefore, Dr. Swarup`s research has direct translational implications." Currently working as Associate Professor at University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Ranjan Swarup is a world-renowned expert on hormone regulated root development, authoring many highly cited papers. 

“Today’s focus on biosciences will be vital for protecting the interests of the humankind on all fronts in future. Be it health, food security, clean environment, and healthy living, we cannot afford to escape today from the need of investing our time, efforts, and investments in the field of bio sciences. Global linkages and exchange of ideas between the top academicians will certainly go a long way in this more relevant and meaningful”, said Vice President –RBEF(Amity Education Group ) & Director –International Affairs, Prof. (Dr.) Gunjan M. Sanjeev , host & moderator, while delivering her opening remarks.

Director – Amity Stem Cell Institute , Prof. (Dr.) Arvind Chhabra, presented his remarks highlighting that Dr. Swarup`s work will go a long way in improving plant productivity, which has significant potential in addressing the issue of food scarcity in the world, especially in country like India with 1.4 billion people and counting. 

Several senior officials who graced the webinar with their presence are Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Maj. Gen. BS Suhag, Dean-DSW, Maj. Gen. G.S. Bal and Director-AIP, Prof. (Dr.) Satish Sardana.  The session was appreciated and witnessed about hundred participants from both India as well as overseas.