Following her emergence as the 2022 winner of the prestigious Illumina Agricultural Greater Good Initiative Grant, IITA Molecular Geneticist Ranjana Bhattacharjee and her team are receiving support for research in yam sequencing data. Yam is considered an orphan crop and is a staple in Nigeria and some parts of Africa.
The grant announcement made on Illumina’s website earlier in the year stated that “Bhattacharjee’s work is helping to address food insecurities of low-income, food-deficit countries in West Africa by breeding yams, a staple of diets in this region”.
The research explores the sequencing of the genes of cultivated and wild yam species to determine the traits that can increase disease resistance and yields of yam. With the target of addressing food insecurity in the sub-Saharan region, Bhattacharjee is also creating a community resource that will contribute to yam breeding research and sustain benefits for future research at IITA.
According to Bhattacharjee, identifying yam viruses as one area of focus will greatly assist virology research. With the Illumina grant, Bhattacharjee will carry out whole-genome sequencing of one of the most extensive samples of Guinea yam to understand the genetic relationships between different species—cultivated and wild—in West Africa. Bhattacharjee’s grant win and research, which is gaining media attention, will focus mainly on specific genes of yam that can confer disease resistance, resilience, and higher yield.
The report on the Vanguard website notes that her research will use the NovaSeqTM 6000 System, Illumina’s fastest production scale sequencing instrument.
CSRWIRE reveals that when Bhattacharjee joined IITA in 2009, the knowledge of yam genomics was limited due to a lack of funding. With the support of the Illumina grant, Bhattacharjee is carrying out in-depth genomics-assisted research on these starchy tubers, thereby contributing significantly to the nutritional and economic value of the crop.
The sequencing data, which will be made public on IITA’s open-access platforms, will significantly impact breeding programs and virology research in the future. It will also contribute to addressing food insecurity in the sub-Saharan region.
The Illumina Agricultural Greater Good Initiative Grant is a prestigious annual grant recognizing research proposals that will increase the sustainability, productivity, and nutritional density of agriculturally important crops and livestock species. Grantees receive Illumina products and services equivalent to 20 trillion base pairs of data to support their projects.
For more information
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/07/iita-scientist-breeds-more-resilient-yam-species-in-west-africa/
https://www.modernghana.com/news/1172916/breeding-a-more-resilient-yam-in-west-africa.html
https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/751436-breeding-more-resilient-yam-west-africa
https://newsghana.com.gh/breeding-a-more-resilient-yam-in-west-africa/
https://www.facebook.com/illuminainc/videos/2022-greater-good-grant-winner/1382230445554179/
Contributed by Timilehin Osunde
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