Dr Egamberdieva is recognized for developing technologies which allow micro-organisms to interact with crops, in order to improve the latter’s productivity and mitigate environmental damage caused by agricultural practices. These detrimental practices include the use of chemical fertilizers, which pollute the water and soil, as well as monoculture farming, in which large areas are dedicated to a single crop, thereby reducing biodiversity.
Dr Egamberdieva works with a range of crops, namely wheat, cotton, legumes, cucumber and tomato. She has identified beneficial micro-organisms that interact with these plants in ways that make them more robust while accelerating their growth. This interaction between plant and microbe has led to the development of “super-crops” capable of withstanding drought, salinity, heat and even soils polluted with heavy metals. Thanks to her research, crops can not only grow in degraded environments but also help to restore them.
Dr Egamberdieva has used various techniques, in order to understand how plants and microbes interact and adapt to changing environmental conditions. She has isolated and identified microbes that are beneficial for plants and developed ways of keeping them alive in storage, before applying them to seeds and soil. Much like a doctor watching over their patient, Dr Egamberdieva has established techniques which allow her to monitor the growth of her plants, their level of nutrition, their susceptibility to disease and their tolerance to stress factors like drought and salinity. In fact, the microbes that she introduces into crops act much like the vaccine with which a doctor inoculates a patient, in order to build the patient’s resistance to pathogens. To this extent, Dr Egamberdieva could be described as a “plant physician”.
Dr Egamberdieva has been undertaking this research from the National Research University (TIAME) in Tashkent, where she heads the Department of Biological Research and Food Safety at the Institute of Fundamental and Applied Research – but her work will be beneficial for agriculture not only in Uzbekistan but around the world.
She is a true pioneer and, as such, a fitting laureate for the UNESCO-Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology. The prize is named after Cuban scientist Carlos J. Finlay, the man who discovered over a century ago that it was mosquitoes which infected people with yellow fever. UNESCO and the Government of Cuba established the biennial prize some 40 years ago.
This is not the first award for Dr Egamberdieva. In 2019, Elsevier named her Top Scientist of the Year through its Scopus Regional Award. In 2006, she was awarded a L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science research fellowship and was distinguished by the American Society of Microbiology Award. In 2013, she received an Award in Agricultural Sciences from the Academy of Science for the Developing World (TWAS), a UNESCO programme unit.
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Menattallah Elserafy
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