Exogenous Priming and Engineering of Plant Metabolic and Regulatory Genes: Stress Mitigation Strategies in Plants

Manish Kumar Patel is currently a visiting scientist of the Department of Postharvest Science, Agriculture Research Organization, The Volcani Center, Rishon LeZion, 7505101, Israel. He obtained his M.Sc. in biotechnology in 2009 from Annamalai University, India and Ph.D. in biotechnology in 2016 from CSIR-Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute/Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar, India. He completed his postdoctoral research at two research institutions in India, including the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, and National Institute of Plant Genome Research. Between 10/2016 and 04/2019, he worked in the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, and National Institute of Plant Genome Research as a research associate and national postdoctoral fellow, respectively. His current research interests are the elucidation of the roles of primary and secondary metabolites, and their interactions in abiotic stress responses and tolerance, as well as genomics and stress physiology. He has published 27 peer-reviewed papers and 12 selected abstracts presented at national and international conference. He has edited 2 special issue on current topics in “Plant Metabolites and Their Reprogramming for Plant Tolerance under Environmental Stress” published by international journal of molecular sciences. He is a reviewer for a number of plant journals including frontier in plant science, journal of plant growth regulation, bio-protocol, international journal of molecular sciences, and more. He is a topical advisory panel member for number of journal including international journal of molecular sciences, foods, and metabolites.

Lam-Son Phan Tran is currently a Professor of the Department of Plant and Soil Science Institute of Genomics for Crop Abiotic Stress Tolerance (IGCAST), Texas Tech University. He obtained his M.Sc. in biotechnology in 1994 and Ph.D. in biological sciences in 1997 from Szent Istvan University, Hungary. He completed his postdoctoral research at several research institutions in Japan, including the National Food Research Institute, the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, and at the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences. Between 08/2007 and 12/2008, he worked in the Soybean Genomics and Biotechnology Laboratory, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA, as a senior research scientist. From 01/2009 to 08/2020, he held a Unit Leader position in RIKEN, Japan. His current research interests are the elucidation of the roles of phytohormones and signalling molecules, and their interactions in environmental stress responses and tolerance, as well as translational genomics of crops with the aim to enhance crop productivity under adverse environmental conditions. He has published over 230 peer-reviewed papers and contributed numerous book chapters to various book editions published by Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, and the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. Together with his co-editors, he has edited several book volumes for Springer and Elsevier.

Sonika Pandey is currently a visiting scientist in the Department of Fruit Trees Sciences, Institute of Plant Sciences, Agriculture Research Organization, The Volcani Center, Rishon LeZion, Israel. She completed her BSc. in botany in 2005 from St. Andrews College, Gorakhpur/D.D.U Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, India and obtained her M.Sc. in biotechnology in 2009 from Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, Kanpur, India. She completed her doctoral degree in biological Science in 2015 from CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, Gujarat/Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), New Delhi, India. She worked as Research Associate I at the Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC), Belgaum, India. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi India from May 2016 to March 2019. Her current research focuses on the role of nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species in signalling in plant response to abiotic stress. In addition to this, she is actively involved in elucidating the mechanism of dormancy releases in bud. She has published 15 articles in peer-reviewed journals that contain 9 research articles, 3 reviews and 3 book chapters. Her main area of research interest includes plant stress biology and metabolomics.

Avinash Mishra is Principal Scientist as CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSIR-CSMCRI), Bhavnagar, India. He is graduate from Ewing Christian College, Allahabad (an autonomous college of Allahabad University). He did his Masters and PhD in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar (first Agriculture University of India). His research area is Metabolomics & Biotechnology, Plant Molecular Biology, Abiotic Stress Tolerance of Plants, and Plant Transgene Technology. He has published over 100 research articles in the journals of international repute with 43 h-index, so far (as per Google Scholar). Moreover, he has handled more than 10 research grants (projects) and published about 20 book-chapters with international publishers. He has guided more than 15 PhD students (3 are currently working). He also mentored more than 15 graduate students for their dissertation or research internship. He has several years’ editorial experience to the several international scientific journals. Currently he is serving as Associate Editor for the section Marine Biotechnology in Frontiers in Marine Science. He has honored with Young Scientist Award from Council of Science and Technology (UP-CST), Govt. of UP and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Govt. of India for excellent contribution in the field of Biological Sciences (Abiotic Stress Tolerance)