Dr. Sanchita Vaghchhipawala
(alias Roy Chowdhury)
Plant Biology Division
Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
2510  Sam Noble Parkway
Ardmore, OK 73401

E-mail: svaghchhipawala@noble.org
Nationality: Indian, Visa Status: H1

• Research Associate, Plant Biology Division, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.

• Genetic engineering of legume and cereal crops for altering and/or introducing novel characters of economic importance.

• 2000 Nov - 2002 Oct: Dept. of Biochemistry, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln (Dr. Lori Allison). Standardization of transient protein expression in different subcellular organelles in maize, Arabidopsis and tobacco protoplasts. Determination of sub cellular localization of nuclear-encoded maize sigma factors in different model systems.
• 1999 Nov - 2000 Oct: Dept. of Biochemistry, Univ of Nebraska, Lincoln (Prof. Donald P. Weeks). Synthesis and cloning of an herbicide-resistant acetolactate synthase gene from red algae, and transformation and analysis of Chlamydomonas with this construct
• 1999 April - 1999 Oct: Dept. of Horticulture, OARDC, Wooster, OSU (Prof. John J. Finer) Wheat Transformation, Analysis of transgenic soybean, wheat.
• 1998 April - 1999 March: Waksman Institute, Rutgers University, New Jersy (Prof.Pal Maliga) Chloroplast transformation in Arabidopsis.

• Ph.D. (Botany), 1992-1998: Thesis entitled "Attempts to develop a nuclear male-sterile Brassica juncea line using anther specific expression of a killer gene." Project involved construction of chimeric genes, standardization of nuclear transformation methods in Brassica juncea and development of transgenic male sterile lines of Brassica juncea and tobacco using anther specific promoter expression of the Barnase gene. Degree awarded from Plant Molecular and Cellular Genetics Section, Bose Institute, Calcutta University.
• M.S. (Botany) First Class, 1991, Calcutta University, India.
• B.S. (Botany Honors) First Class, 1989, Calcutta University, India

• Generation of transgenic tobacco, Brassica and Arabidopsis. Nuclear and chloroplast transformation via Agrobacterium and microprojectile bombardment methods.
• Protoplast generation and transformation from tobacco, Brassica , Arabidopsis and maize.
• Sub-cellular localization of molecules of interest during transient expression assays via confocal microscopy.
• Histological analysis of transgenic tissues, Immuno- cytochemistry.

• Proficient in usual molecular cloning techniques such as generation of chimeric constructs and analysis of transgenic plants via PCR, RT-PCR,Northern, ELISA,Western and Southern hybridizations.

• Proficiency in Windows, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, GCG.

• Don Weeks, Joy Kovar, Roel Funke, Jun Zhang, Sanchita Roy Chowdhury and Heriberto Cerutti. "Use of a mutant acetolactate synthase gene as a dominant selectable marker for nuclear and chloroplast transformation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii." Presented at the annual conference "Chlamy 2000". in The Netherlands.
• Tom Beardslee, Sanchita Roy-Chowdhury and Lori A. Allison. "Determining the sub cellular localization of a nuclear-encoded sigma-like factor, ZmSig2B, in maize." Presented at the American Society of Plant Biologists annual meeting in Providence, RI, 2001.

• Naoumkina, M., Vaghchhipawala, S., Tang, Y., Ben, Y., Powell, R.J. and Dixon, R.A. (2008) Metabolic and genetic perturbations accompany the modification of galactomannan in seeds of Medicago truncatula expressing mannan synthase from guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L.) Plant Biotechnology Journal, in press.
• Yao, J., Roy-Chowdhury S., and Allison, L.A. 2003. AtSig5 Is an essential nucleus encoded Arabidopsis ? like factor. Plant Physiology, June 2003, Vol.132, pp. 739-747.
• Beardslee, T.A., Roy-Chowdhury S., Jaiswal, P., Buhot, L., Kerbs-Mache, S., Stern, D.B., and Allison, L.A. 2002. A nucleus-encoded maize protein with sigma factor activity accumulates in mitochondria and chloroplasts. The Plant Journal. 31(2): 199-209.