Kiran K. Sharma

Plant tangencies of this kind entails creation of varieties with new traits resistant to herbicides, pests and viruses. Besides developing transgenic crops, Sharma’s lab is developing a ‘golden peanut’—a GM groundnut with increased levels of the Vitamin A pre-cursor beta-carotene. As Sharma explains, 70 per cent of the crops produced by subsistence farmers are normally consumed by the farmer and his family. Therefore, such varieties could have direct implications in improving the nutrition intake of these families too.