Molecular Biology Laboratory

Molecular biology facility focus over the conservation and genetic improvement of forest trees through genomic and transcriptomic approaches. Department has strong background in forest genomics and has undertaken various national and international projects for the estimation of spatial population genetic structure, gene flow parameters, genetic diversity status of natural populations/ provenances/clones deploying genome wide molecular marker surveys viz. isozymes, RAPD, AFLP, ISSR and microsatellites. Extensive work has also been carried out in the molecular characterisation of soil microbiota of plantations as well natural populations using 16SrDNA sequenes, which is used for identification of families, genera and species of bacteria and also to infer phylogenetic relationships. The department is currently more focussed to the functional genomics/transcriptomic research to meet the challenges to improve the quality and productivity of forests by directly looking at the coding DNA sequences. Association genetic mapping researches are currently underway which aims to develop expressed sequence tags (ESTs) for the quantitative trait of interest in forest trees. The putative functional roles of the identified SNPs are being tested and evaluated through association mapping. A central DNA barcoding facility for various life forms has also been developed recently and is equipped with a ready to use DNA barcoding technique for plants, animals, insects, fungi etc. Department has also ventured into the genetic screening for the inherited disorders in the particularly vulnerable forest dwelling tribal community in collaboration with the research team at Calicut medical College.

The equipments include laminar airflows, autoclaves, bioreactor, high speed refrigerated centrifuges, PCR machines, spectrophotometer, nanodrop, gel electrophoresis and gel documataion units, ice flaker machines and deep freezers etc.

Contact: Department of Biotechnology
Kerala Forest Research Institute
Peechi P.O, Thrissur District, Kerala - 680653, India
Tel: +91-487-2690191
e-mail: molecularbiology@kfri.res.in