Coimbatore: The Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding (IFGTB) has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with a US-based company to market and sell the DNA isolation kit developed by the Institute in Coimbatore. The MoA signed by Kerafast Inc. Boston, USA and IFGTB is considered as a major step that will not just encourage the research activities, but take the products developed by researchers at the Institute to a global level.
Coimbatore: The Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding (IFGTB) has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with a US-based company to market and sell the DNA isolation kit developed by the Institute in Coimbatore. The MoA signed by Kerafast Inc. Boston, USA and IFGTB is considered as a major step that will not just encourage the research activities, but take the products developed by researchers at the Institute to a global level.
"The cost-effective DNA isolation kit developed by the Institute is a non-bio hazardous and isolated genomic DNA from a wide range of plant tissues exclusively for tree crops. The user-friendly DNA isolation can be used for all marker assays and next-generation sequencing," said Dr Modhumitha Dasgupta, Scientist, IFGTB who developed the kit. "The kit will make the cumbersome process of DNA isolation due to the presence of bio contaminants, easier. Extracting DNA from free species is tricky because tree tissues have metabolites which can make DNA recovery difficult," she added. Modhumitha further said that the product is one third the cost of other products and is just priced at Rs. 95 per reaction.
Dr. Mohit Gera, Director of IFGTB said that the Institute had signed a bipartite MoA with Kerafast Inc., Boston, USA to market and sell the kit through their e-commerce portal, based on a non- exclusive license across the world. He also added that the commercialization of this technology is facilitated by Adastra IP Pvt. Ltd., Gurugram, Delhi.