Compendium of Crop Genome Designing for Nutraceuticals

The crop plants cater not only to our basic F5 (food, feed, fiber, fuel, and furniture) needs but also provide a number of nutraceuticals with potential nutritional, safety and therapeutic properties. Many crop plants provide an array of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidant-rich bioactive phytochemicals. Increasing incidences of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and HIV, and malnutrition necessitate global attention to health and nutrition security with equal emphasis to food security. This compendium compiles results of researches on biochemical, physiological and genetic mechanisms underlying biosynthesis of the health and nutrition related nutraceuticals. It also explores the precise breeding strategies for augmentation of their content and amelioration of their quality in crop plants under all commodity categories including cereals and millets, oilseeds, pulses, fruits and nuts, and vegetables. The compendium comprise 5 sections dedicated to these 5 commodity groups and presents enumeration on the concepts, strategies, tools and techniques of nutraceutomics. These sections include 50 chapters devoted to even number of major crop plants. These chapters present deliberations on the biochemistry and medicinal properties of the nutracuticals contained; genetic variation in their contents; classical genetics and breeding for their quantitative and qualitative improvement; tissue culture and genetic engineering for augmentation of productivity and quality; and sources of genes underlying their biosynthesis. They also include comprehensive enumeration on genetic mapping of the genes and QTLs controlling the contents and profile of the nutraceuticals and molecular breeding for their further improvement through marker assisted selection and backcross breeding tools. Prospects of post-genomic precise breeding strategies including genome-wide association mapping, genomic selection, allele mining, and genome editing are also discussed. This compendium fills the gap in academia, and research and development wings of the private sector industries interested in an array of subjects including genetics, genomics, tissue culture, genetic engineering, molecular breeding, genomics-assisted breeding, bioinformatics, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, entomology, pharmacognosy, IPR, etc., and will also facilitate understanding of the policy making agencies and people in the socio-economic domain and research sponsoring agencies.

Prof. Chittaranjan Kole is an internationally renowned academician with a spectacular professional career of about 40 years!. His pioneering scientific contributions, specifically in the fields of plant genomics and biotechnology, have been globally appreciated. Prof. Kole has developed a number of original concepts and strategies, which have contributed enormously to science and benefited the national as well as global society. His scholarly publications include 150-plus research articles and over 180 books with globally reputed publishers. Prof. Kole’s academic contributions have been profusely appreciated by seven Nobel Laureates including Profs. Norman E. Borlaug, Arthur Kornberg, Werner Arber, Phillip A. Sharp, Günter Blobel, Leland H. Hartwell, and Roger D. Kornberg. His scientific achievements have been honored with several awards, fellowships and recognitions including the “Outstanding Crop Scientist Award” conferred by the International Crop Science Society in recognition of his “life-time and original contributions in the field of crop science.”

Prof. Kole worked as a researcher, faculty member and administrator in a large number of premier institutions and universities in India and abroad. In India, he worked across all academic positions from an Assistant Professor to Vice Chancellor in three premier universities including Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, and Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya. He also worked in Indo-Russian Center for Biotechnology as its First Project Coordinator. In abroad, he worked in the USSR Academy of Sciences, erstwhile USSR, as a PostDoctorate Scholar; University of Wisconsin, USA as an Overseas Research Associate; The Pennsylvania State University, USA, and Clemson University, USA, as a Visiting Professor; and Institute of Nutraceutical Research at Clemson University as Director of Research.

Prof. Kole is recognized as a visionary science leader in the global arena. He is the Founding President of three international organizations including the Genome India International, International Climate Resilient Crop Genomics Consortium, and International Phytomedomics and Nutriomics Consortium. In recognition of his international leadership quality, the Food and Agriculture Organization invited Prof. Kole to act as the Leader of the Climate Change theme for the FAO International Symposium on “The Role of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition” in 2016. He organized and chaired many prestigious international workshops, chaired several technical sessions; and delivered innumerable invited plenary lectures and keynote addresses in many international scientific meetings.

Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, World Food Prize Laureate, once wrote to Prof. Kole that “You are a role model for all of us.” while Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Prof. Roger D. Kornberg wrote to the Honorable Prime Minister of India about Prof. Kole that “your country will be increasingly benefitted by utilizing his comprehensive knowledge and visionary ideas on science, education and agriculture.” Above all, Nobel Laureate in Peace, Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the Father of Green Revolution, wrote to Prof. Kole that “May all Ph.D.s, future scientists and students that are devoted to agriculture get an inspiration as it refers to your work.”