Plant Science & Genomics

John L. Lindquist is working in a broad range of agroecological issues ranging from the mechanisms of interplant competition to gene flow in sorghum species to ecological weed management in organic production systems to the use of systems simulation to optimize the efficiency and sustainability of our agricultural production systems.

Plant Science and Genomics

Shimon Gepstein has completed his PhD at the age of 30 years from Tel-Aviv University and postdoctoral studies from University of California, Santa Cruz. He/She is the President of Kinneret College on the Sea Of Galilee and Prof.Emeritus of the Technion. Former Dean Of Biology at The Technion. The research interest of Prof. Gepstein is related to hormonal regulations associated with plant senescence and plant adaptations to abiotic stress conditions. His major recent scientific achievements are the development drought resistant crops that can grow on as little as 50% of water without any yield losses. This technology may offer a possible approach future severe predicted crises of the global food, water and energy shortages.Prof.Gepstein has published more than 65 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an chair of the national Committee of Agro biotech of the Ministry of Agriculture

Plant Science

Dr. S.S. Sindhu has joined Agricultural Research Services (ARS) in 1990 as a Scientist in Horticulture at ICAR-IARI, New Delhi after completing Doctorate Degree in Horticulture. He has worked as Project Coordinator (Floriculture) in All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) in ICAR and Director (Hort.) at Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Secretariat, New Delhi. After having wide expertise in various positions, presently he is working as Head of the Division of Floriculture & Landscaping and School Coordinator, School of Horticulture at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. His research areas are protected cultivation, landscape gardening and bulbous ornamental crops. His work on “off season chrysanthemum” through photo-periodic application and protected cultivation technology are among the major achievements. He has developed five varieties viz. Kt-3 of dahlia, Katrain Sel.-1 in daffodil & spontaneous mutant in gerbera, Pusa Kiran, Pusa Shubham in gladiolus. He has also developed promising varieties in Developed flower varieties Pusa Bahar, Pusa Deep in Marigold, Pusa Unnati, Pusa Srijan, Pusa Sinduri in Gladiolus, Pusa Mahak in Rose and Pusa Guldasta & Pusa Shwet in Chrysanthemum. He has guided 10 M.Sc. and 07 Ph. D and many of them are foreign students. He is teaching advance Courses in Commercial Floriculture & Landscape Design. He has published 85 research papers, 110 popular articles, 25 short communications, 15 books & bulletins and 40 lead papers. He has been honoured with DAHS Gold Medal, Dr. H. B. Singh Award, National Leaders Memorial Award and Bharat Jyoti Award for his meritorious work in the field of Floriculture and Landscaping. He is recipient of INSA fellowship of Japan under International Exchange Programme. He has been elected as Fellow of the Horticulture Society of India for his outstanding contribution and leadership in the field of Horticulture. Elected Fellow and secretary of Indian Society of Ornamental Horticulture awarded JSIL Fellowship He is Vice President of Rose Society of India, Secretary of Bougainvillea Society of India & ISOH. He has visited Japan, Kathmandu (Nepal), Islamabad (Pakistan), USA, Canada & China. He has many other credentials in the field of technical, management and administrative fields to his credit.

Floriculture and Landscaping

Prof. Nativ Dudai is a principal researcher and breeder in the Unit of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in the Newe Ya'ar Research Center of the Agricultural Research Organization, Israel. Prof. Dudai works on acclimation, domestication and breeding of aromatic and medicinal plants and manages a big living gene bank for this goal. One of his main scopes is development and breeding elite varieties of aromatic plants for year round production. His sweet basil cultivars are leading and renowned in the production of the fresh cut herbs, and he was the first to sequence and assembly its whole genome. His breeding concentrate also in the improvement of the health values of herbs by using classical breeding methods to manipulate their secondary metabolites content and composition. This approach has led to development novel plants and varieties for the phyto- therapy, cosmetics and food industries, such as clary sage as new source of Omega 3 oil and rosemary with very high content of carnosic acid for the natural preservative products. He is also involved in research on the bioactivity of plants and their secondary metabolites, mainly the inhibition of germination and growth of plants by essential oils and their anticancer activity.

Aromatic and medicinal plants

Prof. Kirti obtained his PhD degree from the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam in 1979. He joined the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in 1978 and has been associated with the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, primarily working at the National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology till December 1998. He has joined the Department of Plant Sciences as a Professor in January 1999 and headed it from February 2004 to February 2007. He has worked as a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the University Goettingen (1985-1987), as a Visiting FAO Fellow at the Ohio State Biotechnology Center, Columbus USA (1993). He was a Visiting Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy-New Delhi, Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences-New Delhi, Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences-India and a Fellow of the Telangana Akademi of Sciences-Hyderabad. He has been an elected Member- Plant Tissue Culture & Biotechnology Association of India.

Current Research Interests: Activation tagging for gene discovery in rice, Extra-ribosomal functions of ribosomal proteins, Genetic manipulation using plant disease resistance related genes.

Chemist Pharmacobiologist at the Autonomous University of Coahuila, 2005; Master in Food Science and Technology from the Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, 2007; PhD in Biotechnology from the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the Autonomous University of Coahuila, 2011. Research stay at the University of Fortaleza, Fortaleza Brazil 2001. Research stay at University College Cork, Cork Ireland, 2007.

Biotechnology and Agricultural Sciences