My tissue culture experience

I was initiated into plant tissue culture when I was working at Unilever Research Centre in Mumbai (then it was called Hindustan Lever Research Centre). I was trained by John Barret a tissue culture expert from Unilever, UK. Since Unilever in India was manufacturing hydrogenated vegetable oils like Dalda(brand name) at that time they were doing research on edible oil yielding plants like sunflower and coconut. So my research was on these plants. My aim was to develop a protocol for micropropagation (large scale multiplication of plant by tissue culture) of sunflower and embryo culture of coconut. This research was done under the guidance of Dr. V.S. Sarma 

After that I went to USA to do my Ph.D. with Dr. Subhash Minocha of University of New Hampshire in Durham. I did some tissue culture work on paper birch. But my Ph.D was in plant enzymology where I worked on the kinetics, regulation and purification of L-phenylalnine ammonia lyase from lettuce seedlings. Though this research I was able to master downstream processing (purification of a product from a bioreactor) techniques used in biotechnology. I have the honour of being Dr. Minocha’s first Ph.D student. Now he is a very busy scientist with many students doing doctoral and postdoctoral research with him.

I did my postdoctoral research with one of the pioneers in plant tissue culture Dr. E. John Staba of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. USA . ( He has published around 105 scientific papers and authored many books in plant tissue culture) My research was on an antimalarial compound called artemisinin from Artemisia annua. This compound is the only cure for cerebral malaria. I was able to develop a cell free system for artemsinin production from  shoot cultures of Artemisia.  I was able to increase artemisinin production by using some sterol inhibitors.

I came back to India and did research on micropropagation of spices at Central Food Technological Research Institute in Mysore in India. Then I returned to my home town (my roots) Kottayam in Kerala and started a small tissue culture lab named Phytoclone Laboratories in my house with the intention of giving training in plant tissue culture.  I have trained a lot of students. Among them is Mr. Antony who is running a tissue culture lab in Pala(Tropical Biosciences) in Kerala and Dr. Shaji  now working at Rubber Research Institute of India in Kottayam. Many biotechnology students have done projects in plant tissue culture in my lab. Once I had 21 students of  Cochin College from  Kochi here to do projects.

In  the subsequent blogs I will take you step by step through tissue culture techniques and its applications.  I will also tell you how you can start a tissue culture lab.   I will also highlight plant genetic engineering techniques and their applications.