Courses

This course is designed for undergraduate students from the Agricultural Institute of Organic Agriculture (AIOA) of Amity University Delhi, India and taught every academic year. In winter 2020, AIOA and CPSBB’s School of Advanced Horticulture (SAH) jointly developed the curriculum. The course was conducted between December 15, 2020 – April 10, 2021. Dr. Amol N. Nankar, from CPSBB‘s Vegetable Breeding Department, conducted eight lectures on Mendelian Inheritance, Cytoplasmic Inheritance, Quantitative Genetics, and Population Genetics. More than 100 students attended the course and sat the exam, prepared by Dr. Nankar. A summary of each lecture according to the taught topics is given below:

Three lectures were dedicated to Mendelian inheritance. Dr. Nankar introduced students to Mendelian genetics, the application of chi-square analysis, and the determination of pedigrees. The first lecture, conducted on January 22 2021, covered Mendel’s laws of uniformity, segregation, and independent assortment. The second lecture on January 29 2021, covered the concept of the chi-square test, its usage and estimation. The third lecture on pedigree analysis, conducted on February 4 2021, was on Mendelian principles used in human genetics, understanding the pedigree chart, and examples of dominant and recessive traits.

Cytoplasmic inheritance was taught in two lectures dated February 12 and February 26 2021. The first one covered the differences between cytoplasmic and nuclear inheritance as well as examples of cytoplasmic inheritance. The second was dedicated to the chloroplast, mitochondrial genome, and cytoplasmic inheritance applications in animal and plant breeding with demonstrated examples.

Three lectures on these topics were delivered on March 12^th, 19^th, and 25^th, 2021, respectively. The themes included differences between quantitative and qualitative traits and the significance of quantitative genetics in medicine, evolution, and agriculture. Mathematical basis of quantitative genetics and quantitative/polygenic trait inheritance principles were among the subjects covered in the second talk. The last lecture was dedicated to population genetics and the theory of allelic frequencies. Students have acquainted with Hardy-Weinberg (HW) principle and its applications.