Gnana Viji, PhD
Research Professional, Molecular Biology, Fort Valley State University, Georgia

Dr. Gnana Viji is a Research Professional and Part-time Graduate Faculty in the Specialty Plants Biotechnology Program in the College of Agriculture, Family Sciences and Technology at the Fort Valley State University (FVSU, Fort Valley, GA), a State and Land-Grant University in the University System of Georgia. Dr. Viji has more than 12 years of research and teaching experience in molecular genetics and biotechnology of medicinal and nutraceutical plants. Her research interests at FVSU include (1) Development of efficient biotechnology protocols for in vitro plant regeneration and conservation of nutraceutical guava (2) Genetic transformation of guava plants to improve desired
quality (3) Characterization of genetic diversity and establishment of interspecific relationships among guava and peach cultivars using DNA fingerprinting tools, and (4) Characterization of white, cream, pink and red-fleshed guava and peach for phytochemical and bioactive components. Dr. Viji has been instrumental in the establishment of the American Council for Medicinally Active Plants (ACMAP) which is a scientific/professional society to serve and promote research on medicinal plants. She has more than 30 scientific publications and 35 professional presentations to her credit. She earned her B. Sc. (1987), M.Sc. (1989), M. Phil. (1991) and Ph.D. (1997) in Botany from the University of Madras, Chennai, India.