By Asmahanim Amir
Pictures by Shahiddan Saidi

BANGI, 21 February 2017 – Researchers from UKM’s Biology System Institute (INBIOSIS) will be collaborating with Felda Global Ventures (FGV) Research and Development (R&D) Sdn Bhd in conducting a study on oil palm plant disease prevention.

The high impact research project is titled “Development of stimulatory microbial metabolites and optimization of beneficial microbes against Ganoderma: Towards understanding the plant-diseases interaction and improved control protocols.”

UKM Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dato’ Seri Dr Noor Azlan Ghazali said the research aims to develop trigger antibiotic residues and antibiotic that could potentially increase the production of metabolite-bearing and thus produce microbial agents bio-control and bio-fertilize that have the potential to be commercialized.

“FGV R&D Sdn Bhd allocated RM150, 000 for the two-year research project.

“UKM’s research team will be led by Dr Syarul Nataqain Baharum who is the Head of Plant Biotechnology and Genome Technology Analysis Research Centre.

“The research group will undertake the metabolomics using Metabolomics Module developed by the INBIOSIS metabolomics group,” he said.

He hopes other collaboration will follow suit to give opportunity for other researchers to be involved.