University of the Punjab.

Seed Biotechnology Lab
Dr. Abdul Munim Farooq is serving as Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology, Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB) Lahore. As Plant Breeder and molecular biologist, he has developed genetically modified commercial crops with local resources in Pakistan. His research focuses on plant transformation for different biotic/abiotic stresses, such as Insect, Herbicide tolerance, drought and heat stress. It involves identifying and characterizing molecular function of individual genes using combination of biotechnological tools and employing several approaches such as development and characterization of transgenic crops, tolerant or sensitive to these stresses. He has developed 16 Maize inbred lines. He has developed technology for Agrobacterium mediated transformation in local maize lines first time in the country. He has developed transgenic maize lines resistant to insect, herbicide frost, heat and drought. He has developed two high yielding transgenic Maize F1 hybrids. Patents on Maize and sugarcane are in process.
He started his research work by developing inbred lines and F1 hybrids in chilies. He has developed twenty four inbred lines of tomato. He has developed haploid and diploid tomato lines through anther culture. He has developed high yielding double cross hybrids in tomato. He worked on In-vitro Development of cucumber, cauliflower synthetic seeds, transformation of sugarcane for various biotic and abiotic stresses. He is team member for GMO testing, DNA fingerprinting and CEMB agriculture commercialization. He has trained and supervised number of BSc(Hons), MS, M.phil and PhD students.
Area(s) of Research:
Plant Tissue Culture, Plant Biotechnology, Plant Genetics, Plant Breeding, DNA Sequencing, Phylogenetic Analysis, DNA, Plant Molecular Biology, Plant Biology