KASARGOD:Sruthi S was jittery but a Google search partially calmed her. The 25-year-old found Florida is like Kerala - seascape, roads lined with coconut palms, and with lots of Malayalees.“I have never gone so far. Hope it will be pleasant,” she said, unable to hide her excitement and nervousness.
Pursuing her PhD in Central University of Kerala’s Department of Plant Science, Sruthi has won a fellowship to go to the University of Florida for a six-month internship. Only five researchers from across the country have been selected for the fellowship offered by the Government of India’s Department of Biotechnology and Indo-US Science and Technology Forum. The other four researchers are from premier institutes such as IISER, Pune; IIT, Madras; NCBS-TIFR, Bengaluru and University of Delhi.
What sets apart Sruthi, a native of Tattamangalam in Palakkad, is her story of hardship. “She had a tough and scarred childhood. But she invested in education and is self-made today,” said G M Nair, adviser, Kerala Biotechnology Commission, Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment. Nair mentored her during her MSc days in CUK.
She lost both her parents -- Shivaraman and Sakunthala -- in a span of six months when she was in Class VIII in 2005. The families of both the mother and father were “not so welcoming” because “my parents had a love marriage”, she said.After schooling, the single-child fellowship helped her complete her graduation from Government College at Chittur. Later, she cracked the common entrance examination and joined the Department of Plant Science in CUK. After her post-graduation, she invested all the money she got from the single-child fellowship in a six-month coaching for CSIR-JRF examination. “It was a risk. But I did not have a choice,” said Sruthi. She could not think of going back to her house. “My father wanted me to be a doctor. But my rank was 7,000. So getting a doctorate was the next best thing,” she laughed.
Shruthi cleared the entrance and joined the same university for PhD. She is working on finding a solution to the bacterial blight attack on pomegranates.“India is the largest producer of pomegranate, but 70 to 80 per cent of the crop is lost to bacterial blight every year,” she said. “A solution will change the economics of the crop.”She is trying to identify the genes that promote susceptibility, said Ginny Antony, Sruthi’s guide.
“Once identified, the genes can be edited to make it resistant to bacterial blight attacks,” she said.
The importance of the research can be gauged from the fact that the Indian Council of Agricultural Research had been listing eradication of bacterial blight in pomegranate as its top challenge since 2014. The challenge award carries a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh.
“In 2016, when I visited Solapur, where pomegranate is cultivated, farmers said they had to burn down their entire fields in 2014 to curb the spread of disease,” Sruthi said.In Florida, she will work in the lab of Frank White in the Department of Plant Pathology. “He is working on bacterial blight and the lab has the techniques and facilities to further Sruthi’s research,” said Antony.