Plant molecular biology in India - The beginnings

In this article we trace the growth of studies in plant physiology and bioc hemistry in India and their gradual transformation to research in plant mol ecular biology utilizing the recombinant DNA techniques which began in the eighties. Initially, the universities and institutions in Calcutta and Delh i have played the leading role. Although now there are several centres, and research is being done on many aspects - such as photosynthetic genes and their expression, molecular biology of stress, signal transduction mechanis ms and studies on plant genomes it is clear that in India these studies are still in their infancy. We end this article with a few suggestions and rec ommendations for all concerned to ponder over with a view to help accelerat e research.