Dr. Dalia Varghese has a Masters in Agriculture where she worked on the influence of arbuscular mycorrhizae on acclimatization of micro propagated plantlets. Her Ph.D. in Horticulture from University of Agriculture Sciences (India) dealt with the in vitro regeneration and mutagenesis in medicinal plants. She has used her expertise in her post-doctoral research which broadly focuses on the cryopreservation of explants alternative to zygotic axes of tropical tree species producing recalcitrant seeds. With the successful cryopreservation of meristems of Trichilia emetica (Varghese et al., 2009), similar work has been extended to the cryopreservation of meristems of other tree species such as T. dregeana. Another area of her research lies in understanding the mechanisms underlying the cryosurvival of plant germplasm using biochemical markers and microscopy.

Recent research publications

• Boby Varghese, Sershen, Patricia Berjak, Dalia Varghese & Norman W. Pammenter, 2011. Differential drying rates of recalcitrant Trichilia dregeana embryonic axes: A study of survival and oxidative stress metabolism. Physiologia Plantarum 142: 326–338.
• Dalia Varghese, Berjak, P. and Pammenter, N.W., 2009. Cryopreservation of shoot tips of Trichilia emetica, a tropical recalcitrant-seeded species. CryoLetters 30: 280-290.

Book authored

• Sathyanarayana, B.N. and Dalia B. Varghese. 2007, Plant Tissue Culture: Practices and New Experimental Protocols. I.K. International Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, p. 292.