Dateline Dehradun: Two research scholars from the Himalayan School of Biosciences, Swami Rama Himalayan University, bagged top honors at the International Conference GangaAyurCon-2022.
Anjali Uniyal and Sweta Upadhyay won the first and second positions respectively in the Scientific Poster Category.
The Conference on “Medicinal Plants of Ganga River Basin and Their Therapeutic Importance in Indian System of Medicines,” was held at Gurukul Campus Uttarakhand Ayurvedic University, Haridwar from 5th to 6th September, 2022
Anjali Uniyal presented her perspective on, ‘Genetic Diversity Assessment Using Molecular Markers for the Conservation of Rheum Species.’ This has been her research topic as well which she is conducting along with Akhilesh Kumar, Sweta Upadhyay, Sanjay Gupta and Vijay Kumar.
Sweta Upadhyay, a PhD Scholar at Himalayan School of Biosciences, SRHU was awarded 2nd position in Scientific Poster Category. The title of her presentation was ‘Molecular analysis of micropropagated Rheum emodi plants using RAPD and ISSR markers for ascertaining Clonal fidelity.’ Her co-researchers in the above research are Anjali Uniyal, Vijay Kumar, Sanjay Gupta and Akhilesh Kumar.
Overwhelmed with the achievement of SRHU’s students, Vice Chancellor Dr Vijay Dhasmana stated, “Their research topic has huge relevance to the welfare of humanity. Their main projection is that cultivation of plants can be planned to meet the needs of the industry in required quantities and at required time. If efforts were made for systematic cultivation of medicinal plants instead of collecting them from the wild, many of the problems like unplanned harvesting and threats to the plant specie would be minimized. Properly identified, certified and biochemically characterized planting material can be supplied to the growers. Unintentional adulteration can be avoided and it will be easier to check deliberate adulteration.”
The proposal presented by the duo was how to develop efficient routine procedures and facility for obtaining genetic data on large numbers of samples in order to specify and detect the variation among the distinct geographical sources through molecular markers, which will be used for the authentication of the plant material. Hence the herbal wealth of the State could be utilized to its optimum. Up grading of plant tissue culture facility at Himalayan School of Biosciences, SRHU, Dehradun will help in implementations of improvement programme for medicinal plants of the State of Uttarakhand more vigorously.
The project was given to Dr. Sanjay Gupta as Principal Investigator and Dr Vivek Kumar, Co-PI by the Uttarakhand Council for Biotechnology, Haldi, Govt. of Uttarakhand.
