Best Scientist Award to Dr Maganti Sheshu Madhav

Dr Maganti Sheshu Madhav, the Principal scientist of Indian Institute of Rice Research ( ICAR- IIRR), got the best scientist award for his extensive research on rice genomics for more than two decades. The prestigious award was conferred by honourable Vice President of India Mr M Venkaiah Naidu yesterday at Hyderabad during an event organized by Rythu Nestham Foundation.

The foundation works mainly on reducing pesticides and maximizing output to improve farmers welfare. Every annual day, Rythu Nestham (farmer’s friend) foundation give away awards to farmers who are engaged in organic farming and conservators of traditional varieties of field and horticultural crops and to scientists for their farmer’s friendly advanced research. For the year 2020, Rythu Nestham selected Dr Sesu Madhav for his discovery of the genes resistant to different biotic stresses in rice. In this context, Dr Madhav identified useful genes for leaf and neck blast and BLB. His lab identified novel genetic resources for challenging diseases like sheath blight and yellow stem borer by research association with Nucleome Informatics. Dr Madhav’s pioneering work on improvement of cooking quality rice by identification of simple DNA markers helped several breeders across the country.

At present, Dr MS Madhav works in delineating the diversity of rice blast pathogen and strategies for managing this disease effectively like wheat rust with the collaborative effort of several national and international partners like Nucleome Informatics.

He said this award made him more responsible for empowering farmers with technology. He also thanked the contribution of Nucleome Informatics in his ongoing research. Team Nucleome congratulates Dr MS Madhav and his entire team on this achievement and looking forward to a long term research collaboration.