World Bank-ICAR funded NAHEP-CAAST training program on “qPCR and Image analysis system: Basic and Applications” was organized during November 12 and 15, 2021 at Discovery Centre, ICAR-Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi.

The training was attended by Forty-nine students from 10 different disciplines of Post Graduate School, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi. Dr. A. K. Singh, Director, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi graced the inaugural function as chief guest and interacted with the students and delivered a speech about NAHEP-CAAST in the presence of Dr. C. Viswanathan, PI, NAHEP-CAAST; Dr. Aundy Kumar, Principal Scientist, Division of Plant Pathology; Dr. V. Govindasamy, Scientist (SS), Division of Microbiology; and Dr. Durgesh Singh, Application Scientist, BioRad-India, New Delhi.

The hand-on training program was comprised of both basic and application aspects on qPCR and Image analysis system with respect to the nucleic acid amplification, detection and quantification methods are among the most valuable analytical tools in the modern biological research. This two-day long training programme also covered various nitty-gritty of image analysis system leading to the understanding of amplicon size estimation, image data documentation, evaluation and generation of publication-quality images.

This two-day training programme offered lot of opportunity to the students to learn from and interact with BioRad application specialist on the basics of qPCR, image analysis system and their applications.  The training was fruitful and appreciated by the student trainees.