Rasha Adam Omer Abdalla
Professor, Biosaftey and Biotechnology Research Center, Agricultural Research Corporation of Sudan
Sudan
Rasha Adam Omer Abdalla, Researcher scientist from Biosaftey and Biotechnology research center at Agricultural research corporation of Sudan, she obtained BSc first class (Honours) in Agricultural biotechnology, University of Khartoum, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Botany and Agricultural Biotechnology , upon completion of her first degree she worked as teaching assistant at University of Khartoum. Rasha joined Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC) of Sudan in 2003, her work focused on Screening of Sudanese cotton genotypes for salinity tolerance, Anther culture of wheat, GMOs Detection, Marker assisted selection in breeding, Evaluation of Sudanese maize genotypes to drought under field condition, Molecular biology work, breeding programmes in Wheat, Maize, Sorghum and Cotton. Teaching, Preparing and supervising course work practical sessions in plant tissue culture, genetic engineering and molecular biology techniques both for undergraduates (B.Sc) and master at Kenyatta University.
Rasha she is the first scientist in Sudan who established protocols for tissue culture of Sudanese maize using different source of explants leaf disk, shoot tip, mature embryos and immature embryos using different level of Auxin and she has published three articles on tissue culture and regeneration of maize.
She is the first scientists who transform Sudanese maize, she established protocols for transformation of tropical maize using Agrobacteium, She got her M.Sc in genetic engineering of Maize from Kenyatta University under fund from ASARECA. Rasha got award on 16th October 2007. By the ministry of Agriculture and Agro forestry of Sudan and United Nation (FAO) during the international food day. she awarded an ASARECA PhD scholarship in 2009, her research on genetic engineering of maize for drought tolerant in ECA region has a lot of impact she was able to isolate and clone drought tolerant gene, She used the isolated gene to transform maize, she developed five Gene vectors (pCAMBIA-ASAPAnxZm35, pNOV-ASAPAnxZm35, pCAMBIA-AAnnat1, pNOV-Annat1, pCAMBIA-NHX1-PMI), she was able to developed Eight transgenic tropical maize lines using three different genes conferring drought tolerant using positive selectable marker system call PMI and the transgenic drought tolerant maize will be available to all the farmer in the ECA region. Rasha published six scientific papers.
Molecular biology, Breeding programmes in Sorghum, Maize, Wheat and Cotton, Biochemistry, Biotechnology.
