---

Spirulina is an important source of phycocyanin. Phycocyanin has antioxidant, anti-tumorous, anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective properties. Also natural pigments are gaining much importance in the present day food colourant industry because of the increasing awareness of the harmful effects of synthetic food colourants. As a prerequisite for large scale production in a heterologous host, the important genes involved in the phycocyanin biosynthetic pathway are characterized.

---

Rajasekaran Raghu works as post-doctoral fellow in National Taiwan University, Taiwan. He obtained his doctoral degree in 2005 from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India. He is credited with 6 international papers in the fields of molecular biology and nutrigenomics.

---