Ms. Koyel Bardhan, Ph.D. scholar working under the supervision of Dr. Jogi Madhuprakash, Department of Plant Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad has been selected for the prestigious EMBO Scientific Exchange Grants.
Ms. Koyel Bardhan
EMBO Scientific Exchange Grants, previously known as EMBO Short-Term Fellowships, fund research collaboration up to three months between laboratories in eligible countries.
Koyel is working on the plant growth promoting ability of a novel bacterial isolate for which she is trying to understand its mechanistic aspects of growth promotion and interaction with the host plant tomato. Under this scientific exchange programme, she will visit Dr. Ville Friman’s laboratory at the University of York, UK. Dr. Friman’s group aims at understanding ecology and evolution of pathogen-microbe interactions and proximate molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying these interactions. This basic understanding is crucial for developing biocontrol and plant growth-promotion applications in agriculture. This opportunity will help her gain new skill sets required to investigate the molecular mechanisms behind plant-microbe interactions. The proposed objectives are part of Koyel’s Ph.D. thesis, which will be submitted to the University of Hyderabad.