Raman Dhariwal, M.Sc. (Ag.), M.Phil., Ph.D.

Research Biologist

Trait discovery and breeding of spring wheat and triticale at the interface of modern molecular biology, genetics, genomics, statistical analyses and bioinformatics.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

5403 1 Avenue South, Lethbridge, Alberta

Current research and/or projects

Development of breeder friendly gene markers for selection

QTL/gene mapping for resistance to cereal diseases and agronomic traits

Development of high yielding CPS wheat cultivars for western Canada

Research and/or project statements

To support spring wheat and triticale breeding research program

Identification and characterization of disease resistance in spring wheat and triticale

Professional activities / interests

My current research interest lies in the identification and molecular characterization of genes/QTL that make wheat plants more resilient against different biotic stresses. In particular, I am focusing on unscrambling the genetic and molecular basis of resistance and other mechanisms against various devastating diseases (i.e. Fusarium head blight, loose smut, common bunt and cereal rusts) and insect (i.e. Sawfly) important to Canadian wheat.

Education and awards

Education

Ph.D. Genetics and Plant Breeding, Ch. Charan Singh University, 2012

Honors & Awards

Postdoctoral Fellowship

University of Alberta

Jul 2016

NSERC Visiting Fellowship

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council

Jul 2013

Best oral presentation award

Punjab Agricultural University

International conference

Nov 2012

NSF Research Fellowship

National Science Foundation (NSF), USA

May 2011

DBT Senior Research Fellowship

Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India

Dec 2009

Research Student Representative of the Year 2009

Chaudhary Charan Singh University, India

Jan 2009

Highest Ranking Student of M.Phil.-2008 batch

Chaudhary Charan Singh University, India

Jul 2008

DBT Junior Research Fellowship

Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India

Dec 2007

Highest Ranking Student of M.Sc.-2007 batch

Chaudhary Charan Singh University, India

Jul 2007

International experience and/or work

Punjab Agricultural University, India

Project/research:

BREAD (Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development): an alternating dwarfing gene system to improve abiotic stress tolerance in cereals.

May 2011 – Jun 2013

Chaudhary Charan Singh University, India

Project/research:

Analysis of host-pathogen interaction in leaf rust infection of wheat: a tanscriptomic approach

Dec 2007 – May 2011

Development of PCR based molecular markers in jute crop

Dec 2007 – Mar 2011

Molecular characterization of drought tolerance signaling (two-component system)

Dec 2007 – Mar 2011

Marker aided selection (MAS) for leaf rust resistance and pre-harvest sprouting in bread wheat.

Dec 2007 – Dec 2009

A study of sodium azide induced chromosomal aberrations in rice (Oryza sativa)

Jul 2005 – Jul 2007

Key publications

Research and Review Papers:

Raman Dhariwal, Maria A. Henriquez, Colin Hiebert, Curt A. McCartney, Harpinder S. Randhawa (2020) Mapping of Major Fusarium Head Blight Resistance from Canadian Wheat cv. AAC Tenacious. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 21, 4497.

Peter Brown, [RELISH Consortium, including Raman Dhariwal*], Yaoqi Zhou (2019) Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search. Database 2019, baz085. (*Member of RELISH Consortium)

Raman Dhariwal, George Fedak, Yves Dion, Curtis Pozniak, André Laroche, François Eudes, Harpinder Singh Randhawa (2018) High density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis in a biparental spring triticale population localized major and minor effect fusarium head blight resistance and associated traits QTL. Genes 9, 19.

Gurcharn Singh Brar, Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder Singh Randhawa (2018) Resistance evaluation of differentials and commercial wheat cultivars to stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis) infection in hot spot regions of Canada. European Journal of Plant Pathology 152: 493-502.

Dharmendra Singh, Dhananjay Kumar, Lopamudra Satapathy, Jyoti Pathak, Saket Chandra, Adnan Riaz, Govindraj Bhaganagre, Raman Dhariwal, Manish Kumar, Kumble Vinod Prabhu, Harindra Singh Balyan, Pushpendra Kumar Gupta, Kunal Mukhopadhyay (2017) Insights of Lr28 mediated wheat leaf rust resistance: Transcriptomic approach. Gene 637: 72-89.

Harindra S Balyan, Vijay Gahlaut, Anuj Kumar, Vandana Jaiswal, Raman Dhariwal, Sandhya Tyagi, Priyanka Agarwal, Supriya Pandey, Pushpendra K Gupta (2016) Nitrogen and Phosphorus Use Efficiencies in Wheat: Physiology, Phenotyping, Genetics and Breeding. Plant Breeding Reviews 40: 167-234.

Raman Dhariwal, Vijay Gahlaut, Bhaganagare R Govindraj, Dharmendra Singh, Saloni Mathur, Shailendra Vyas, Rajib Bandopadhyay, Jitendra P Khurana, Akhilesh K Tyagi, Kumble V Prabhu, Kunal Mukhopadhyay, Harindra S Balyan, Pushpendra K Gupta (2015) Stage-specific reprogramming of gene expression characterizes Lr48-mediated adult plant leaf rust resistance in wheat. Functional & Integrative Genomics 15: 233-245.

Vijay Gahlaut, Saloni Mathur, Raman Dhariwal, Jitendra P Khurana, Akhilesh K Tyagi, Harindra S Balyan, Pushpendra K Gupta (2014) A multi-step phosphorelay two-component system impacts on tolerance against dehydration stress in common wheat. Functional & Integrative Genomics 14: 707-716.

Harindra S Balyan, Pushpendra K Gupta, Sachin Kumar, Raman Dhariwal, Vandana Jaiswal, Sandhya Tyagi, Priyanka Agarwal, Vijay Gahlaut and Supriya Kumari (2013) Genetic dissection and breeding for improvement of grain protein content and other health related constituents of wheat grain: current status and future needs. Plant Breeding 132: 446-457.

Moumita Das, Sumana Banerjee, Raman Dhariwal, Shailendra Vyas, Reyazul R. Mir, Niladri Topdar, Avijit Kundu, Jitendra P. Khurana, Akhilesh K. Tyagi, Debabrata Sarkar, Mohit K. Sinha, Harindra S. Balyan and Pushpendra K. Gupta (2012) Development of SSR markers and construction of a linkage map in jute. Journal of Genetics 91: 21-23.

Raman Dhariwal, Gaganpreet Kaur, Johar S Saini, Kulvinder S Gill, Harindra S Balyan, Pushpendra K Gupta (2012) Identification of an alternate wheat dwarfing gene: wheat homologues of Arabidopsis Dwarf4 gene. Crop Improvement 39 (Spl. Issue): 13-14.

Gaganpreet Kaur, Raman Dhariwal, Kanwardeep Singh, Suruchi Jindal, Johar S Saini, Madhu M Jindal, Kulvinder S Gill (2012) Exploring the role of auxin influx carrier gene AUX1 for development of an improved dwarfing system in wheat. Crop Improvement 39 (Spl. Issue): 215-216.

Kanwardeep Singh, Suruchi Jindal, Raman Dhariwal, Gaganpreet Kaur, Johar Singh, Kulvinder S Gill (2012) In silico prediction and analysis of TaPIN1 (Auxin efflux carrier) gene in wheat. Crop Improvement 39 (Spl. Issue): 419-420.

Suruchi Jindal, Kanwardeep Singh, Gaganpreet Kaur, Raman Dhariwal, Kulvinder S Gill, Kuldeep Singh (2012) In silico prediction and analysis of maximum auxiliary branching (max2) gene in Triticum aestivum using comparative genomics. Crop Improvement 39 (Spl. Issue): 409-410.

Raman Dhariwal, Shailendra Vyas, Bhaganagare R Govindraj, Shailendra K Jha, Jitendra P Khurana, Akhilesh K Tyagi, Kumble V Prabhu, Harindra S Balyan and Pushpendra K Gupta (2011) Analysis of differentially expressed genes in leaf rust infected bread wheat involving seedling resistance gene Lr28. Functional Plant Biology 38: 479-492.

Jitendra Kumar, Vandana Jaiswal, Ajay Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Reazul R Mir, Sachin Kumar, Raman Dhariwal, Sandhya Tyagi, Kumble V Parbhu, Harindra S Balyan and Pushpendra K Gupta (2011) Introgression of a major gene for high grain protein content in some Indian bread wheat cultivars. Field Crops Research 123: 226-233.

Raman Dhariwal, Shailendra Vyas, Bhaganagare R Govindraj, Shailendra K Jha, Jitendra P Khurana, Akhilesh K Tyagi, Kumble V Prabhu, Harindra S Balyan and Pushpendra K Gupta (2011) Genome-wide transcriptome analysis of seedling resistance to leaf rust conferred by Lr28 gene in bread wheat. Crop Improvement 38 (Spl. Issue): 260.

Other Publications:

Abstracts/conference proceedings:

Raman Dhariwal, Maria Antonia Henriquez, Colin Hiebert, Curt McCartney, Robert Graf, Harpinder Randhawa (2018) Canadian heritage wheat variety alleles of flowering and plant height pathway genes associated with low Fusarium head blight. In: Proceedings of the 9th Canadian Workshop on Fusarium Head Blight /4th Canadian Wheat Symposium joint conference. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Nov 19 - 22, 2018. (Oral presentation)

Harpinder Randhawa, Gurcharn Brar, Randy Kutcher, Raman Dhariwal (2018) Stripe rust virulence in western Canada. In: Abstracts of BGRI Technical Workshop, Marrakech, Morocco, Apr 14-17, 2018.

Harpinder Randhawa, Raman Dhariwal, Maria Antonia Henriquez, Colin Hiebert, Curt McCartney (2018) Flowering pathway genes regulating Fusarium head blight resistance in wheat. In: Langin T, et al. (eds.) (2017) Book of abstracts: EUCARPIA Cereal section Meeting, Polydôme, Clermont-Ferrand, France, Mar 19h - 22, 2018.

Harpinder Randhawa, Raman Dhariwal, Maria Antonia Henriquez, Colin Hiebert, Curt McCartney (2017) Characterization of Fusarium head blight resistance in Canadian spring wheat cultivar AAC Tenacious. In: Buerstmayr H, et al. (eds.) (2017) Proceedings of the 13th International Wheat Genetics Symposium. Tulln, Austria, Apr 23 - 28, 2017. BOKU - University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria; ISBN: 978-3-900932-48-0, p 230.

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder Randhawa, Robert Graf, Colin Hiebert, Curt McCartney and François Eudes (2017) RNAseq bulked segregants suppression subtractive method for tagging of stem solidness genes in common wheat. In: Plant and Animal Genome Conference XXV. San Diego, USA, Jan 13 - 18, 2017.

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder S. Randhawa and Robert J. Graf (2016) Identification and characterization of new stripe rust resistance sources in spring wheat. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Canadian Wheat Symposium. Ottawa, Canada, Nov 22 - 25, 2016. p 37-38.

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder S. Randhawa, George Fedak, Yves Dion, François Eudes, André Laroche and Curtis Pozniak (2016) Mapping fusarium head blight resistance and DON related QTLs in Triticale. In: Miller S (ed.) 2016) Proceedings of the 8th Canadian Workshop on Fusarium Head Blight. Ottawa, Canada, Nov 20 - 22, 2016. p 43.

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder Randhawa, George Fedak, Yves Dion, François Eudes, Andre Laroche and Curtis Pozniak (2016) Genetic mapping of disease resistance and agronomic traits using SNP markers in triticale. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Triticale Symposium. Szeged, Hungary, May 23 - 27, 2016. (Oral Presentation)

Raman Dhariwal and Harpinder Randhawa (2016) Identification and characterization of new resources of common bunt resistance in spring wheat. In: Morgounov A and Muminjanov H (eds.) (2016) Proceedings of the XIX International Workshop on Smuts and Bunts. Izmir, Turkey, May 3 - 6, 2016. p 41-42. (Oral Presentation)

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder Randhawa, Robert Graf, Andre Laroche, Denis Gaudet (2015) Towards identification of new sources of stripe rust resistance in spring wheat. In: 36th Annual Meeting of the Plant Pathology Society of Alberta. Lethbridge, Canada, 11/2015. p 29. (Oral Presentation)

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder Randhawa, Robert Graf, Andre Laroche, Denis Gaudet (2015) Genetic analysis of stripe rust resistance in spring wheat. In: 14th International Cereal Rusts and Powdery Mildews Conference. Helsingør, Denmark, 7/2015. p 138.

Raman Dhariwal, Harpinder S Randhawa, Curtis Pozniak, Brent McCallum, Tom Fetch, Robert Graf (2014) Genetic analysis of stem, leaf and stripe rust resistance in a spring wheat. In: the 2nd Canadian Wheat Symposium. Saskatoon, Canada, 06/2014.

Harpinder Randhawa, Raman Dhariwal, Curtis Pozniak, Brent McCallum, Tom Fetch, Aakash Goyal, Robert Graf (2014) Genetic mapping of stem, leaf and stripe rust resistance in a spring wheat population using 90K SNP Infinium iSelect assay. In: Cereals for Food, Feed and Fuel - Challenge for Global Improvement, Wernigerode, Germany, 06/2014.

Supriya Kumari, Sachin Kumar, Raman Dhariwal, Bikram S Gill, Sunish K Sehgal, Catherine Feuillet, Pierre Sourdille, Harindra S Balyan, Pushpendra K Gupta (2014) In silico identification of a putative TaGS5, an ortholog of rice OsGS5 associated with grain size. In: Science of OMICS Agricultural Productivity: Future Perespectives, Pantnagar, India; 3/2014.

Gaganpreet Kaur, Raman Dhariwal, Harindra S Balyan, Johar Saini, Pushpendra K Gupta, Kulvinder S Gill (2013) Exploring the role of auxin influx carrier gene Aux1 for development of improved root length in wheat. In: InterDrought-IV, Perth, Australia, 9/2013. p 154.

Vijay Gahlaut, Saloni Mathur, Raman Dhariwal, Jitendra P Khurana, Akhilesh K Tyagi, Harindra S Balyan, Pushpendra K Gupta (2013) Identification of two-component system (TCS) candidate genes and their expression analysis under dehydration stress in wheat. In: InterDrought-IV, Perth, Australia, 9/2013. p 166.

Pushpendra K Gupta, Harindra S Balyan, Sachin Kumar, Raman Dhariwal, Vandana Jaiswal, Sandhya Tyagi, Priyanka Agarwal, Vijay Gahlaut, Supriya Kumari (2012) Marker-assisted selection for crop improvement of some major crops in India. Plant & Animal Genomes XX Conference, Town & Country Convention Center San Diego, CA, USA, Jan 14 - 18, 2012. (Oral Presentation)

Harindra S Balyan, Sachin Kumar, Raman Dhariwal, Vandana Jaiswal, Sandhya Tyagi, Priyanka Agarwal, Vijay Gahlaut, Pushpendra K Gupta (2011) Molecular markers for genetic dissection and improvement of some grain quality traits in bread wheat. In: Development and use of molecular markers in crop improvement, Oct 29 - 31, NASC Complex, New Delhi, India. (Oral Presentation)

Raman Dhariwal, Shailendra Vyas, Bhaganagare Govindraj R, Shailendra K Jha, Jitendra P Khurana, Akhilesh K Tyagi, Kumble V Prabhu, Harindra S Balyan and Pushpendra K Gupta (2011) Analysis of differentially expressed genes in leaf rust infected bread wheat involving seedling resistance gene Lr28. In: Hanchinal, R.R. et. al. (eds.) Proc. 3rd Int. Group Meeting on Wheat Productivity Enhancement under Changing Climate. Feb 9 - 12, 2011, UAS, Dharwad, India: p 118.

Newsletters/Reports:

Pushpendra K Gupta, Harindra S Balyan, Jitendra Kumar, Reazul R Mir, Sachin Kumar, Raman Dhariwal, Vandana Jaiswal, Sandhya Tyagi, Priyanka Agarwal, Vijay Gahlaut, Supriya Kumar (2013) Molecular breeding, induced mutagenesis, and transcriptome analysis in wheat. Annual Wheat Newsletter 59: 20-26.

Manual:

Raman Dhariwal (2010) Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) in Bread Wheat. A hands-on-training manual.