Rice Functional Genomics: Challenges, Progress and Prospects

Narayana M. Upadhyaya is currently a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia and leads the group working on Rice Functional Genomics. Previously, he pioneered research into the sequencing of the Rice Ragged Stunt Oryzavirus (RRSV) genome and produced RRSV genome-based synthetic resistance gene constructs while working on a Rockefeller Foundation-funded Rice Biotechnology project (1990-1997) which involved international collaboration. He has been the principal investigator in the bilateral science and technology collaborative research with China (1997-2000). He was instrumental in developing and setting up the rice transformation facility at CSIRO Plant Industry not only for RRSV research but also for other research projects where rice has been used as a model system. He has developed the T-DNA double right border (DRB) vector technology for generating selectable marker-free (SMF) transgenic plants. Since then he has developed a research project on "Rice Functional Genomics" (funded by Australia’s RIRDC and the NSW Centre for Agricultural Genomics) aimed at determining the function of rice genes using an insertional mutagenesis approach. The tools and resources being developed in the group are internationally competitive and as a result CSIRO Plant Industry has become an active member of the International Rice Functional Genomics Consortium. Dr. Upadhyaya has 50 refereed papers, 11 invited presentations and over 50 conference presentations to his credit.