NIGAB — National Institute for Genomics & Advanced Biotechnology | PARC, Islamabad

Through traditional genetic engineering, NIGAB has developed GMOs of wheat, groundnut, potato and tomato against disease, drought and salinity, which await regulatory approval for commercial use at farm level. The institute has also exploited marker-assisted selection for the development of new crop varieties with rust, salinity and drought tolerance.

NIGAB has embarked on new breeding technologies including speed cloning, speed breeding, genomic selection and genome editing using CRISPR-Cas9, dCas9 and Cpf1 approaches. Next-generation sequencing data obtained through genome re-sequencing and transcriptome (RNA-seq) sequencing is analysed for varietal and hybrid identification, SNP marker development and gene discovery. Thirty novel genes related to desirable plant traits have been isolated and are being genome-edited.

NIGAB is a credible reference laboratory for biotechnology and molecular diagnostic testing of GMOs, identification of unknown olive varieties, and detection of adulteration in exportable commodities for quality assurance. Its tissue culture section has replaced infected banana with virus-free banana across Sindh province, with four new varieties currently in the pipeline.

In the livestock sector, NIGAB is actively involved in developing vaccines for disease prevention and epidemic control, and in selecting superior animal breeds using NGS data for improved milk and meat productivity. Development of indigenous probiotic feed additives to improve dairy buffalo productivity in a cost-effective manner is also a priority research area.