AMU professor behind discovery of salt tolerant protein in barley

Identification holds prospect for cultivation in areas with high soil salinity amid climate change

The discovery of a new plant protein by an Indian scientist, in collaboration with researchers from Germany, is set to improve the salt stress tolerance of crops and has opened possibilities of making farmland with high salinity amenable to cultivation.

Assistant Professor with the Department of Botany at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Dr Tariq Aftab, working with seven other collaborators from Germany, identified the new protein, HvHorcH, which plays an important role in conferring salt stress tolerance in barley.

The research was carried out at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben in Germany when Dr Aftab was a Guest Scientist at the Institute having been awarded the Leibniz-DAAD Research Fellowship in 2012-13. After several subsequent years of further studies and trials, the new discovery was reported in the September issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.