Fish Genetics and Biotechnology Division (FGBD) has been playing a significant role in providing academic and research excellence for fisheries and aquaculture development as a lead national centre in the country. The seeds of fish genetics and biotechnological research were sown at CIFE, Mumbai by the then Director Late Dr. VRP Sinha when he entrusted the responsibility of setting up a Biotech and Hi-Tech lab in 1987 to the then scientist Dr. W S Lakra and the rest is history. The research activities of FGBD span different areas of fish genetics and biotechnology including genetic improvement, molecular genetic characterization, DNA barcoding, cell culture/stem cell culture, cultivated seafood, fish proteomics, reproductive biotechnology, genotoxicity, bioinformatics etc. The Division has been offering Master’s degree and Ph. D. in Fish Genetics and Biotechnology (initially in 2001), & then Fish Genetics Breeding & Fish Biotechnology since 2010. Our alumni spread across the world with scientific, postdoctoral research positions at international level and they are engaged as scientist, assistant professor and state departmental officer at national level. The division has state-of-the-art facility for cell culture, sequencing service (NGS Facility), Zebrafish Facility and computational genetics. FGBD offers services for cell line for In Vitro research and cultivated seafood development, sequencing, DNA barcoding, genetic aspects of breeding, etc. Presently, FGBD is leading a research programme on cultivated seafood through an international collaborative project. FGBD has executed many externally funded projects supported by national and international organizations. Extension activities to develop human resources in fish genetics and biotechnology have been carried out time to time.

Development of genetically improved Clarias magur “Mahamagur ”

Development of inbred-strains of indigenous zebrafish

Establishment of a National Smart Protein Innovation Hub on Cultivated Seafood

Development & characterisation of fish muscle celllines for cultivated seafood

Development of mini-barcodes for authentication

Development of rohu Peptide Atlas ( https://peptideatlas.org/builds/rohu/ )

Developed Species-specific DNA barcodes for 250 finand shellfish species

Gene characterization & expression analysis using qPCR

Genome editing using modified CRISPR-Cas9

Cell line & Consultancy service for cultivated seafood research & development

State-of-the-art Facility for cell culture / stem cell culture

DNA barcoding for species authentication

Sequencing services for metagenomics/transcriptomics/NGS Facility

Bioinformatics platform for data analysis

Fish Proteomics Facility

Zebrafish Facility

Nanoparticle synthesis and size analysis

HRD programme for students and researchers on molecular genetics & biotechnology

Short-term training on basic molecular biology techniques

Short-term training on molecular markers in fisheries & aquaculture

Development & characterization of cell lines for in vitro research & cultivated seafood R&D

Basic Bio-informatics for sequence analysis

Bio-informatics tools for omics data analysis/ NGS data analysis

Skill Development Programme (SDP) on molecular taxonomy & DNA barcoding

SDP for applications of Zebrafish as a biomodel oraganisum

HRD for strengthening statistical computing for National Agricultural Research System (NARS)

SDP on fish proteomics & metabolomics