Dr. Narendra Tuteja

Biography

Dr. Narendra Tuteja (DOB: 01/01/1955), Ph.D., D.Sc. in Biochemistry (FNA, FNASc., FASc., FNESA, FNAAS, FTWAS), is currently a Visiting Scientist at International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. Previously he was a Group Leader and Senior Scientist at ICGEB, New Delhi and Senior Scientist at ICGEB, Trieste, Italy. Previously he was also a Professor and Director at Amity Institute of Microbial Technology, Amity University, Noida, UP. Studied in Lucknow, worked about 14 years abroad (USA & Italy) and then came back to India in 1990.

In science, initially at UCLA (USA) Dr. Tuteja had cloned the genes from retina of human and animal in order to solved the problem of genetic disorder Retinitis pigmentosa. In India Dr. Tuteja has made significant achievements in crops improvement under adverse conditions. He has reported the first DNA helicase from plant and human systems and discovered novel roles of Helicases, G proteins, Ca-binding proteins and LecRLK in abiotic stress tolerance in plants. He is leading in the field of helicases and he is on the top most in this field in whole world. Through genetically modification he has developed salinity and drought tolerant rice, wheat, brassica, chickpea, groundnut, chilli, onion, and sugarcane by overexpression of only single gene, PDH45. Dr. Tuteja has also discovered a function of a single gene, Ca-ATPase, in providing multi-stress tolerance in plants. Reported the first evidence of putrescine involvement in mitigating the floral malformation in mango. Many genes for high salinity stress tolerance isolated from plant and fungus P. indica, which are useful for improving the crops. First time he has shown the novel function of a fungus gene, PiCypA, in providing salinity tolerance in plant. Developed Marker free transgenic rice and improved technology for plant transformation.

His research is an important success and indicates the potential for improving crop production at sub-optimal conditions including climate changes/global warming. In collaboration with Bangladesh salinity & drought tolerant variety of Bangladeshi rice has been developed which is under field trial in Bangladesh. After the field trial the benefit will go directly to the poor farmers and their income will increase.

Dr. Tuteja has made a history by publishing a very first paper from India by Indian Scientist in a very high impact journal, Nature Genetics, as a News and Views article, Nature Genetics 13, 11, 1996.