Rosna Binti Mat Taha

Biography

Prof. Dr. Rosna Binti Mat Taha working in Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA. Rosna Mat Taha graduated from the University of Malaya ( Botany) in August 1984 with a second class upper degree and appointed as a tutor at the same Department in September 1984. She pursued her Ph.D in Plant Morphogenesis & Tissue Culture at the University of Wales, Cardiff in Mac 1985 under the UM SLAB scheme and obtained her Ph.D in Mac 1989. Since then she was a lecturer at Botany department from 1989- present. She was appointed as an Associate Professor in July 1995 and in 2003 promoted to a professor. Now the name of the department has been changed to Institute of Biological Sciences. Ever since start working, she has shown her potential, quietly but effectively she developed her research in plant tissue culture. She proved herself as a serious, extremely hard working researcher. Her good work was noticed and although she just came back for 2 years from her Ph.D, she was awarded the TORAY International research grants from Japan for 3 times. In 1998, again she and 2 other lecturers were awarded the Malaysian TORAY research grant. Her main field of specialization is plant morphogenesis. As plant morphogenesis can be studied both in vivo and in vitro, she became engaged with plant tissue culture work since tissue culture is an important tool for many areas in applied biology and biotechnology. As a plant tissue culturist, she can be considered as a significant scientist because her interesting work managed to capture reporters’ attention and her findings many times been publicized and highlighted in the papers, TV and being interviewed by an Australian reporter for their radio programme and in 2007, while attending a conference in Egypt, she was interviewed by Suez Canal Radio on tissue culture of mangrove plants. In short, she managed to successfully associated herself with plant tissue culture. In Malaysia, there are very few scientists working in this area. Even at the University of Malaya, she is one of the few researchers actively working on tissue culture of various plant species, ranging from ornamentals, vegetables to tree species such as Eugenia, Xylocarpus etc. Almost any plant can be regenerated in her lab. She has established a culture room which is visited quite frequently by visitors from local and international organizations. Her work in tissue culture is greatly admired by scientists of the same and different fields and even the public. Apart from plant tissue culture and morphogenesis, she is also specialized in studies concerning cellular behaviour ( cytology) such as measurement of DNA content, cell and nuclear areas, determination of Mitotic index, chromosome counts, determination of cell doubling times, etc. for plants grown in vivo and in vitro. Since tissue culture is one of the major components of Biotechnology, she is also considered as plant biotechnologist, which is very few in Malaysia. She has successfully completed supervising about 70 B.Sc students, 20 M.Sc students and 12 Ph.D students. Currently she is supervising 7 Ph.D students including from Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Bangladesh and 4 M.Sc students and 3 B.Sc students. She also supervised more than 10 students for industrial training on tissue culture. Because of her prominent work, she received many research grants from government of Malaysia, University of Malaya, Japan and from private agency ( PLUS), Golden Hope and Sime Darby.

Research Interest

Plant Tissue Culture Plant Morphogenesis Plant Biotechnology Pigments from Plants Cellular Behaviour of Plants in Vivo and in Vitro