Trilochan Mohapatra (born 20 April 1962) is an Indian biotechnologist, geneticist, a government secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and the director general of the

Indian Council of Agricultural Research The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is an autonomous body responsible for co-ordinating agricultural education and research in India. It reports to the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture. Th ...

. Known for his studies in the fields of

molecular genetics Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...

and

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

, Mohapatra is an elected fellow of the

National Academy of Sciences, India The National Academy of Sciences, India, established in 1930, is the oldest science academy in India. It is located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Prof. Meghnad Saha was the founder president. Fellows *Suddhasatwa Basu * Sudha Bhattacharya * Ch ...

, the

National Academy of Agricultural Sciences The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) is a Government of India funded agency, established in 1990, is a research platform in the fields of crop husbandry, animal husbandry, fisheries and agro-forestry. It acts as a research base for ...

, the

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi for Indian scientists in all branches of science and technology. In August 2019, Dr. Chandrima Shaha was appointed as the president of Indian National Science Academ ...

and the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding. The

Department of Biotechnology The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is an Indian government department, under the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialisation in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India. It ...

of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences in 2003.

Biography

Trilochan Mohapatra was born on 20 April 1962 at Kharibil village in Cuttack in the Indian state of

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

. After completing early schooling at Laxmi Narayan High School at Eranch near his home village in 1978, he did his pre-university studies at

Ravenshaw College Ravenshaw University, formerly known as Ravenshaw college, is a co-educational state university situated in Cuttack, Odisha on the eastern coast of India. Founded as Ravenshaw College in 1868, the institution became a university in 2006. The un ...

(present day

Ravenshaw University Ravenshaw University, formerly known as Ravenshaw college, is a co-educational state university situated in Cuttack, Odisha on the eastern coast of India. Founded as Ravenshaw College in 1868, the institution became a university in 2006. The un ...

) in 1980. Joining

Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) was established in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India in 1962. It is the second oldest agricultural university in the country. It is dedicated to agriculture related research, extension and educatio ...

(OUAT), he earned a BSc in agriculture in 1985 as well as an MSc in genetics in 1987 and continued at the institution for his doctoral studies to secure a PhD in 1992. He started his career in 1992 as a senior scientist at the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology (NRCPB), a centre of the

Indian Agricultural Research Institute The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly known as the Pusa Institute, is India's national institute for agricultural research, education and extension. The name Pusa Institute is derived from the fact that the institute was or ...

(IARI) for advanced research in the fields of molecular biology and biotechnology in crop plants where he worked until 2012, serving as a principal scientist from 2005. In between, he did advanced training in rice

genome sequencing Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing, complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a ...

at the Arizona Genomics Institute of the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

during 2003–04. In 2012, he was appointed as the director of

Central Rice Research Institute The National Rice Research Institute has been established since 1966 under Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) but it was setup on April 23, 1946 at Bidhyadharpur, Cuttack, Odisha with an experimental farm land of 60 hectares. Researc ...

as well as the vice-chancellor of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute. He served as the director of IARI in the year 2015-16 and on 22 February 2016, he was appointed as the secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), a department working under the

Ministry of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister f ...

to act as the government interface for promoting agricultural research and education in India. Simultaneously, He holds the position of the director general of the

. Mohapatra is married and the family resides at National Agriculture Science Centre (NASC) Complex along Dev Prakash Shastri Marg in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

Legacy

Mohapatra, whose research interests covered the fields of molecular genetics and genomics, is known to have worked on the bacterial sequencing of

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

and

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

and is credited with the development of a high-yielding

basmati rice Basmati, , is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally grown in India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

which is resistant to bacterial leaf

blight Blight refers to a specific symptom affecting plants in response to infection by a pathogenic organism. Description Blight is a rapid and complete chlorosis, browning, then death of plant tissues such as leaves, branches, twigs, or floral organ ...

which was accomplished using ''molecular marker assisted selection, physical mapping and genome sequencing''. Molecular mapping of genome and tagging of gene in

mustard Mustard may refer to: Food and plants * Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment * Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment ** Mustard seed, seeds of the mustard p ...

, molecular mapping and gene isolation in Basmati rice hybrid,

marker assisted selection Marker assisted selection or marker aided selection (MAS) is an indirect selection process where a trait of interest is selected based on a marker ( morphological, biochemical or DNA/ RNA variation) linked to a trait of interest (e.g. producti ...

for powdery mildew resistance in

pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...

, molecular marker analysis of

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

, identification of

pearl millet Pearl millet (''Cenchrus americanus'', commonly known as the synonym ''Pennisetum glaucum''; also known as 'Bajra' in Hindi, 'Sajje' in Kannada, 'Kambu' in Tamil, 'Bajeer' in Kumaoni and 'Maiwa' in Hausa, 'Mexoeira' in Mozambique) is the most w ...

hybrids, sex differentiation of

kiwifruit Kiwifruit (often shortened to kiwi in North American, British and continental European English) or Chinese gooseberry is the edible berry of several species of woody vine A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' ...

employing

Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA Random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), pronounced "rapid", is a type of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), but the segments of DNA that are amplified are random. The scientist performing RAPD creates several arbitrary, short primers (10- 1 ...

technique and evaluation of genetic diversity of

jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ''Corchorus olit ...

were some of the other research projects he has undertaken, and he holds several patents for the processes he has developed. His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles and

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...

, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 182 of them. He has also guided several students in their doctoral and master's studies and has imparted training on

molecular breeding Molecular breeding is the application of molecular biology tools, often in plant breedingVoosen P (2009Molecular Breeding Makes Crops Hardier and More Nutritious Markers, knockouts and other technical advances improve breeding without modifying gen ...

to over 25 scientists. As the head of the

, Mohapatra is in charge of 101 ICAR institutes and 71 agricultural universities, spread across India. He sits in the council of the

and is a member of the executive committee of Borlaug Institute for South Asia. He served as an expert on ''Germplasm Characterization'' at the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Korea, having received an invitation from the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology (NIAB), in 2004. He is a life member of the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding and the Society of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology. He is also a former associate editor of

BMC Genetics BioMed Central (BMC) is a United Kingdom-based, for-profit scientific open access publisher that produces over 250 scientific journals. All its journals are published online only. BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open a ...

and the

Journal of Genetics The ''Journal of Genetics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of genetics and evolution. It was established in 1910 by the British geneticists William Bateson and Reginald Punnett and is one of the oldest genetics journals. It was ...

Awards and honors

Mohapatra received two awards from the

in 1994, namely INSA Young Scientist Medal and Professor LSS Kumar Memorial Award. He was selected for the

NAAS Naas ( ; ga, Nás na Ríogh or ) is the county town of County Kildare in Ireland. In 2016, it had a population of 21,393, making it the second largest town in County Kildare after Newbridge. History The name of Naas has been recorded in th ...

-Tata Young Scientist Award of the

(NAAS) in 2001; he also received two other honors from NAAS, the elected fellowship in 2006 and the Recognition Award in 2016. The next year, the

selected him for the B. P. Pal Memorial Award. The

of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2003. The Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding elected him as a fellow in 2004 and he received the elected fellowships of the

in 2005 and the

in 2013. The National Academy of Sciences, India honored him again in 2007 with the NASI-Reliance Platinum Jubilee Award and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Indian Genetics Congress of 2015. He is also a recipient of the Bioved Agri-Innovation Award of 2015 and the

Om Prakash Bhasin Award Om Prakash Bhasin Award for Science and Technology is an Indian award, instituted in 1985 to recognize excellence in the areas of science and technology. The award, given individually or collectively to a group, is annual in cycle and carries a p ...

and the IMS Diamond Jubilee Memorial Award, both in 2016. The award orations delivered by him include the Prasanna Kumar Dash Memorial Lecture of the Orissa Environmental Society (2013), Dr. Gopal Chandra Patnaik Memorial Lecture of the Bigyan Prachar Samiti (2013), Platinum Jubilee Lecture Award of 101st

Indian Science Congress Indian Science Congress Association(ISCA) is a premier scientific organisation of India with headquarters at Kolkata, West Bengal. The association started in the year 1914 in Kolkata and it meets annually in the first week of January. It has a ...

(2014) and the inaugural Prof. S.N. Patnaik Memorial Lecture of

Utkal University Utkal University (UU) is a Public university in Bhubaneswar, Khordha district, Khordha, Odisha, and is the oldest university in Odisha, the state, and the 17th-oldest university in India. It is a teaching-cum-affiliating university. The pre ...

(2014). Honorary D.Sc degree on 7th convocation ceremony by Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidhyala, Chitrakoot Satna.

Selected bibliography

* * *

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mohapatra, Trilochan N-BIOS Prize recipients Indian scientific authors Fellows of The National Academy of Sciences, India Living people Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy 1962 births Ravenshaw University alumni Indian agriculturalists Fellows of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences Indian biotechnologists Heads of universities and colleges in India Indian government officials Scientists from Odisha People from Cuttack district University of Arizona alumni Indian geneticists