An attempt to justify the National Science Day Theme 2019, India through tissue culture perspective. It is a simplified overview of how tissue culture technique could be used to bridge the gap between the laboratory outcomes and common people

1. Science for the people &
people for science
Bridging people and laboratory outcomes-
a tissue culture perspective
Prepared by
Dr. Geetanjali Baruah

2. Introduction
• The role of science and technology in shaping
modern day world is very significant
• Fire and wheel are considered as the mother of
all the innovations
• Raising concern towards scientific establishment
that is not isolated from society
• Usage of scientific discoveries to advocate
advancement of the society
• Aim is to build a bridge between the
achievements in a laboratory and common
people/ society through tissue culture
techniques

3. Tissue Culture- an introduction
• Propagation of a plant by using plant
parts or single cell
• Plant cells bear a special property called
“Totipotency”
• Totipotency is the ability of a single cell to
divide and differentiate into an
organism/plant
• Advantages:
1. Lesser time than regular farming process
2. Lesser space required
3. Delivery of disease free planting material
4. Can be easily adapted by common
people with proper training modules
5. Useful in various aspects like mass
propagation to bio-conservation
6. Applicable in conservation of RET plants,
major crops up to common garden plants
Fig. Simplified pictorial representation of
tissue culture process, Image courtesy:
Google images

4. Initiatives taken by the Government
• Raising awareness by conducting various programs regarding
benefits that could be achieved by tissue culture in
association with State Horticulture Departments, BCIL and
Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India
• Formulation of National Certification system for tissue culture
raised plants (NCS-TCP) in 2006 which boosted the budding
tissue culture industry
• Although it is not mandatory still ~200 commercial tissue
culture companies are registered under NCS-TCP in India till
date with the production capacity of ~500 million plantlets per
annum
• The plant tissue culture market in India is estimated to be Rs.
500 crores
(Source: Department of Biotechnology website, GOI)

5. Some of the success stories

6. Conclusion
Being an agriculture-based economy, we need
to incorporate technologies from various fields
where tissue culture plays the most important
role in providing disease- free planting material
to improve our agricultural proficiency thereby
lessening the gap between the innovations in
laboratories and farmers and ensuring food
security together

7. THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION