ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis arose in part out of years of research that has been done. By that time, I have worked with a great number of people whose contribution in assorted ways to the research and the making of the thesis deserve special mention. It is a pleasure to convey my gratitude to them all in my humble acknowledgment. In the first place, I would like to record my sincere gratitude to my teacher and supervisor Dr. R.S. Singh, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Biotechnology, Punjabi University, Patiala for astute guidance, constructive ideology, and persistent encouragement from the very early stage of this research as well as giving me extraordinary experiences throughout the work. It is his vast knowledge; commitment towards his profession, ideas and willingness to work more and more that motivated me to work hard during this research work. I am indebted to him more than he knows. I express my gratitude to my co-supervisor Dr. B.R. Yadav, Principal Scientist, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal who has been a source of inspiration, planned everything in a systematic way giving full support, unflinching encouragement during this research work. His involvement with his originality has triggered and nourished my intellectual maturity that I will benefit from, for a long time to come. I am especially thankful for his parental affection and there was not even a single day I felt away from home when stayed in NDRI. I owe profound thanks to Prof. Neelam Verma and Prof. P.P. Balgir, who headed the Department of Biotechnology during my research work and provided me the necessary facilities for execution of the study. I also express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Aruna Bhatia, Dr. Munish Puri, Dr. Minni Singh, Dr. Seema Garcha, Dr. Balwinder Singh Sooch and Dr. Baljinder Kaur for their genuine support during this work. I owe special word thankfulness towards my labmates Dr. Gaganpreet Kaur Saini, Dr. Ranjeeta Bhari, Mukesh Yadav, Hemant Preet Kaur, Rupinderjeet Singh and Savita Saini for their timely encouragement, moral support and co-operation.

I would also like to extend my thanks to my labmate Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Dr. Kevi letsu, Dr. Sentitula, Dr. Nitin, and Anil of LGAL, NDRI for the love and care that I ever received from everyone with their willingness to help me at any moment. I like to mention special thanks to Dr. Rakesh Kumar and Mr. Nanku Singh for their generous help and consistent support. I convey acknowledgement to Mr. Om Prakash, Mr. Karam Singh, Mr. Mohaninder Singh & Mr. Indersen, attendants and other non teaching staff for their active co-operation. My deeper sense of appreciation is also due to my friends Dr. Satya Bir Singh, Dr. Sanjay Kumar, Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Dr. Kuldeep Kumar, Dr. Sonika Kapoor, Mandeep Kataria, Sanjiv Sharma Sandeep Gupta, Ashok Yadav and Ashish Tyagi for their affection, care and support. At this contented moment, I hardly find any word to decipher my thanks to my family, my father, mother, brother, sister and bhabhi for their blessings, encouragement and sacrifices to bring me to this level. Above all I thank ‘God Shiva’ for grace and beatitude, I moved through this venture. Finally, I would like to thank everybody who was important to the successful realization of this work, as well as expressing my apology that I could not mention personally one by one.

(RAVINDER KUMAR)