Ph.D. (1991) Plant Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

M.Sc. (1985) Biochemistry, G.B. Pant Univ. of Agric. and Tech., Pantnagar, India.

B. Sc. (1983) Chemistry, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (DEI), Agra, India.

1996-2001: Post-doctoral Fellow, Plant Gene Expression Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
 Supervisor: Dr. David W. Ow.

1993-1995: Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Supervisor: Dr. Indra K. Vasil.

1989-1990: Visiting Research Fellow, Freie Universitat, West Berlin, Germany.  Supervisor: Dr. Otto Schieder. 

1. Plant Genetic Engineering (CSES 5233) Instructor: Plant Molecular Biology Journal Club
2. Advisor, Undergraduate program, Crop Biotech.

I.              Biotechnology:

Our laboratory is developing DNA recombination (Cre-lox and FLP-FRT) based strategies for precise integrations of the foreign gene into crop genomes using rice as a model. The majority of genetically modified plants produced by conventional techniques are not suitable for long-term propagation because they frequently undergo gene silencing. The position and the complexity of the gene integration locus are the major factors that contribute to the silencing phenomenon. Therefore, to prevent gene silencing, it is important to control the location and the pattern of the integration of the foreign gene.

II.             Molecular Genetics

We isolated an epiallele of Arabidopsis Phytochrome A gene, phyA’, that is highly stable in the absence of transgene locus. Northern analysis suggests that this epi-allele is expressed at about 30% that of the wild-type level and contains CG hypermethylation in exon 1.  There is no other modification found in the epiallele.  We are using forward genetics approach to study the mechanism underlying phyA’ expression.

1. Nicholson SJ, *Srivastava V (2009) Transgene constructs lacking transcription termination signal induce efficient silencing of endogenous targets in Arabidopsis. Mol Genet Genom. 10.1007/s00438-009-0467-1
2. *Gidoni D, Srivastava V, and Carmi N (2008) Site-specific excisional recombination approaches for agricultural biotechnology. In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology-Plant DOI 10.1007/s11627-008-9140-3.
3. *Srivastava V, Gidoni D, and Carmi N (2009) Site-specific gene integration technologies for crop improvement. In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology - Plant (in press).
4. Srivastava V (2008) Book review: Breeding major food staples. J. Environ. Qual. 37: 1.
5. Moore SK and *Srivastava V (2008) A bacterial haloalkane dehalogenase (dhlA) gene as conditional negative selection marker for rice callus cells. In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology –Plant 44: 468-473.
6. Chawla R, Nicholson, SJ, Folta, KM, and *Srivastava V (2007) Transgene-induced silencing of Arabidopsis phytochrome A gene via exonic methylation. Plant Journal 52: 1105 – 1118.
7. Nicholson SJ, and *Srivastava V (2006) Cre/lox technologies for plant transformation. CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources 2006 1, No. 034.
8. Moore SK and *Srivastava V (2006) Efficient Deletion of Transgenic DNA from Complex Integration Locus of Rice Mediated by Cre/lox Recombination System. Crop Sci. 46: 700 - 705.
9. Chawla R, Ariza-Nieto M, Wilson AJ, Moore SK, and *Srivastava V (2006) Transgene expression produced by biolistic-mediated, site-specific gene integration is consistently inherited by the subsequent generations. Plant Biotech J. 4: 209 – 218. (Cover Article).
10. Radhakrishnan P and *Srivastava V (2005) Utility of the FLP-FRT recombination system for genetic manipulation of rice. Plant Cell Rep. 23: 721 - 726.
11. *Srivastava V and Ow DW (2004) Marker-free site-specific gene integration in plants. Trends in Biotechnol. 12: 627 - 630.
12. *Srivastava V, Ariza-Nieto M and Wilson A (2004) Cre-mediated site-specific gene integration for consistent gene expression. Plant Biotech. J. 2: 169 -179.
13. *Srivastava V and Ow DW (2003) Rare instances of Cre-mediated deletion product maintained in transgenic wheat. Plant Mol. Biol. 52: 661 - 668.
14. Srivastava V and *Ow DW (2001) Site-specific gene integration in rice. Mol. Breed. 8: 345 - 350.
15. Srivastava V and *Ow DW (2001) Single copy primary transformants of maize obtained through the co-introduction of a recombinase-expressing construct.  Plant Mol. Biol. 46: 561 - 566.
16. Srivastava V, Anderson OA, *Ow DW (1999) Single-copy transgenic wheat generated through the resolution of complex integration patterns. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 96: 11117 - 11121.
17. Judova J, Ow DW, Srivastava V, McBride K, Simuth J (1998) Agrotransformation of plants with cDNAs encoding honeybee proteins. CHEMICAL PAPERS-CHEMICKE ZVESTI 52: 584.
18. Srivastava V, Vasil V and *Vasil IK (1996) Molecular characterization of the fate of transgenes in transformed wheat. Theor. Appl. Genet. 92: 1031 - 1037.
19. Altpeter F, Vasil V, Srivastava V, *Vasil IK (1996) Integration and expression of the high-molecular weight glutenin subunit 1Ax1 gene into wheat. Nat. Biotechol. 14: 1155 - 1159.
20. Altpeter F, Vasil V, Srivastava V, Stoger E, *Vasil IK (1996) Accelerated production of transgenic wheat. Plant Cell Rep. 16: 12 - 17.
21. John SJ, Srivastava V, *Guha-Mukherjee S. (1995) Cloning and sequencing of chickpea cDNA coding for threonine deaminase. Plant Physiol. 107:1023-1024.
22. Vasil V, Srivastava V, Castillo AM, Fromm ME and *Vasil IK (1993) Rapid production of transgenic wheat plants by direct bombardment of cultured embryos. Bio/Technol. 11: 1553-1558.
23. Srivastava V and *Guha-Mukherjee S (1992) Polyamine levels in crown gall tumor and teratoma. Phytochem. 31: 3357 - 3358.
24. Srivastava V and *Guha-Mukherjee S (1992) Phosphatidylinositol turnover in crown gall tumor. Phytochem. 31: 773 - 774.
25. Reddy AS, Srivastava V and *Guha-Mukherjee S (1989) A tandemly repeated DNA sequence from B. juncea. Nucl. Acid. Res. 17: 5849.
26. Srivastava V, Reddy, AS and *Guha-Mukherjee S (1988) Transformation and regeneration of Brassica oleracea mediated by an oncogenic Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Plant Cell Rep. 7: 504 - 507.