Doctoral Student from University of Basrah Able to Plant Arabidopsis Thaliana Successfully

A doctoral student from Biology Department at the Faculty of Education for Pure Sciences /the University of Basrah, Wa'am Mu'adhil Hussein, succeeded in planting Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant that does not grow within Vegetation of Iraq under the supervision of Dr. Hussein Khalaf Zayed and Dr. Lama Hussein.

Hussein mentioned that the importance of this plant comes from being a model plant for phylogenetic, biochemical, molecular and genetic studies. It is similar to the Drosophila insect, which is a model in animal studies.

She expressed that the plant has a small genome size compared to other model plants as well as the completion of its identification since 2000.

The researcher pointed to the possibility of development under controlled laboratory conditions without the need for large areas for planting, for the reason that the plant is not exceeding the length of (25-30) cm in addition to its short life cycle, which ranges from (6-8 weeks) as well as its ability to create a very large number of Seeds.

Hussein added that the plant does not grow at all in Iraqi nature (Wild Plant) and it seeds imported from scientific institutions and companies outside Iraq at a high cost of about $ 50 per hundred seeds, noting that her success in laboratory planting will reduce the cost to less than one third of the same number.