Sugarcane Biotechnology: Challenges and Prospects

Dr. Chakravarthi Mohan is presently postdoctoral fellow at the department of Genetics and Evolution, Federal University of Sao Carlos, Brazil where he aims to develop transgenic sugarcane for weevil resistance through RNAi approach. He received his PhD in biotechnology in 2015 for his work on `Isolation and characterization of constitutive and wound inducible promoters and validation of designed synthetic stem/root specific promoters for sugarcane transformation' from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore and the study was carried out at the ICAR-Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, India. He has considerable expertise on sugarcane genetic engineering, transcriptome analysis and sugarcane molecular farming which is evident from his publications. He has published 13 research papers in international peer-reviewed journals and 5 book chapters. He is a life member of Indian Science Congress Association and also serves as reviewer for several international peer-reviewed journals. He has also presented his research in international and national conferences.

Chapter 1.Potential health benefits of sugarcane.- Chapter 2.Sugarcane genomics and transcriptomics.- Chapter 3.Unraveling the sugarcane genome: progress made so far and challenges ahead.- Chapter 4.Methods of sugarcane transformation.- Chapter 5.Factors affecting genetic transformation efficiency in sugarcane.- Chapter 6.Novel potential candidate promoters and advanced strategies for sugarcane transformation.- Chapter 7.Sugarcane: an efficient platform for molecular farming.- Chapter 8.Biotechnological interventions for improving sucrose accumulation in sugarcane.- Chapter 9.Sugarcane as a potential biofuel crop.- Chapter 10.Plastome engineering: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.-Chapter 11.CRISPR-Cas9 system as a genome editing tool in sugarcane.