July 6, 2014. Rhizobium vitis cause the crown gall disease of grapevines resulting in  considerable economic losses. Recent reports have revealed that the water-based crude extracts from hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) and ryegrass (Lolium perenne) act as a deterrent to antimicrobial activity against R. vitis. Researchers now  have shown that in a gree

July 7, 2014. GNOBB members who want to do Ph.D. in in the field of Drug design/development in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) may be interested to apply for a Ph.D. fellowship.  Interested candidates, are requested to send a short CV, together with a short account of their previous work/study experiences and publication (if any) to tghsasongko@gmail.com. The study wi

In a short communication published in the 2nd July issue of Crop Biotech Update, the authors have reported that they have discovered heavy metal P1B-ATPase (CsHMA3) genes in Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz, popularly known as false flax. This transgenic crop is tolerant to heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc and can be grown in harsh environments. Cam

In an article entitled, “Introgression of a 4D chromosomal fragment into durum wheat confers aluminium tolerance,” published in the July issue of Annals of Botany, Chang Han1, Peter R. Ryan1, ZeHong Yan and Emmanuel Delhaize reported  enhanced Al3+ tolerance  in sister lines derived from the third backcross. They sho

In an article, Isolation and functional characterization of JcFT, a FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) homologous gene from the biofuel plant Jatropha curcas published in BMC Plant Biology 2014, 14:125,  Chaoqiong Li, Li Luo, Qiantang Fu, Longjian Niu and Zeng-Fu Xu  reported that they have isolated an FT homolog from Jatroph

June 27, 2014. A number of calorie free sweeteners are available in the market. Erythritol is one of them.  According to a news item by the Vienna University of Technology (VUT), the university has developed a method   to produce erythritol from ordinary straw through genetically modifying the fungus Trichoderma reesei. Previously, t

20th June, 2014. To spice-up GNOBB readers with the current advances going on with Genetically Modified crops, GNOBB would like to focus on the recent announcement of GM bananas human trial. Prof. James Dale from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, the lead scientist of the research team gave a stat that every year due to pro vitamin A deficiency about 650,000 to 7

The  2014 June issue of the Journal of of Plant tissue Culture and Biotechnology (vol. 24, June issue) has just been published. The issue contains  14 articles,  including two short communications.  Of the 12 full articles six, one is about cloning  and characterization of alcohol dehydrogenase  region one is on Metabolic Profile Study&nb

Alexander A. Myburg, and 79 of his associates have sequenced and assembled the 640-megabase genome of Eucalyptus grandis and published their resultsonline 11th June, 2014 in Nature. Of 36,376 predicted protein-coding genes, the investigation revealed, 34%, the largest   reported so far, occurs in tandem duplications. This is the largest proportion

In an article published online June 8, 2014, in the journal Nature Genetics, a team of researchers  affiliated to four different well-known Organizations reported that they have sequenced and  assembled a 473-million base pair genome of the common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris. Their study also revealed that the common bean was domesticated separately at two