Story
Prof. Rajeev Varshney, educated at Aligarh Muslim University and CCS University, Meerut, led genomics research at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, and now at Murdoch University, Australia. His teams decoded the genomes of many 'orphan' crops of poor farmers and used them to breed better varieties.
Key contributions
- Reference genomes of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, pearl millet and other crops
- Improved chickpea and high-oleic groundnut varieties through genomics-assisted breeding
- Fellow of the Royal Society (2023); Bhatnagar Prize (2015)