Final Report Summary - SUPRA (Suppression of RNA silencing by plant pararetroviruses: protein versus RNA-based)
The knowledge and the expertise gained by the researcher through this project and the publications in many reputed journals will be very instrumental in his career development. The collaborations which were continued and initiated during this project will also be useful for the researcher for future scientific interactions. The host group has long-term collaboration with prof. Veluthambi group at Madurai Kamaraj University (India) through Indo-Swiss Collaboration in Biotechnology (ISCB). The researcher, who was introduced to the host group through ISCB, has enhanced the collaboration between the groups. The researcher initiated collaboration with Dr Il-Ryong Choi, International Rice Research Institute (Philippines) to study the rice tungro disease complex. Furthermore, the researcher collaborated with Dr Marie-line Iskra-Caruana group at CIRAD (Montpellier, France) to study silencing and its suppression in Banana streak virus, a pararetrovirus which infects banana. There was good exchange of information and visits including a short term scientific mission of the researcher to Cirad supported by European Cooperation and Science and Technology (COST) in the frame of the COST action FA0806. The researcher has taken part in training undergraduate and graduate students in the host lab and actively participated in the teaching programme in plant physiology and plant molecular biology at the host institute. Taken together, the experience gained by the researcher during his stay at the host institute should be useful for establishing his independent research group back in India.