Prof. K C Bansal, Former Director, NBPGR (ICAR) is known for his contributions in the area of abiotic stress tolerance ranging from basic physiological mechanisms to crop genomics, transgenic development and for promoting utilization of germplasm for crop improvement.

Dr. Henry T. Nguyen is the University of Missouri Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Biotechnology. He served as Director of the National Center for Soybean Biotechnology established by the United States Congress from 2004 to 2016. Prior to the current position, Dr. Nguyen was a professor of genetics at Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University System for 18 years. The Board of Regents at Texas Tech University awarded him the Paul Whitfield Horn distinguished professorship. He has a distinguished career in plant genetics and biotechnology research and teaching and is internationally recognized for his work on plant adaptation to stress environment and crop resilience. His research team conducts genetic analysis of abiotic stress tolerance, disease resistance and value-added traits and applies molecular marker technology to crop improvement. Dr. Nguyen has gained recognition through many awards such as the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award and Texas Tech’s Presidential Award and Teaching Academy. He has been invited to present seminars and speak at national and international conferences in more than 35 countries. He was elected as Fellow of the Crop Science Society of America, Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Nguyen was an elected Vice President of the Global Plant Council. He served as Chair of the Molecular Genetics, Genomics, and Biotechnology Division of the Crop Science Society of America and member of the Board of Directors of the CSSA. He has edited 6 books and served on several editorial boards and published more than 285 refereed articles and 40 book chapters. He chairs the Abiotic Stress Workshop and co-chair the Crop Genomics for Global Food Security at the International Plant and Animal Genome Conference. In 2018, he received a lifetime achievement Crop Science ResearchAward from the Crop Science Society of America.

Dr Amitabh is currently serving at the Program Director, National Genomics and Genotyping Facility (NGGF)-DBT, NIPGR, New Delhi. Prior to that he held several leadership roles in DuPont Pioneer at the DuPont Knowledge Centre (DKC) including that of the site leader for the Ag Biotech group, Chair of the Site Leadership Council (SLC) for multiple times, and most recently as the Leader, Trait Discovery, Corteva AgriscienceTM, DKC. Prior to this role, Amitabh served as Senior Research Manager, Trait discovery and optimization. He was also part of the global Trait Discovery Leadership Team (TDLT) and Asia Pacific Plant Breeding Leadership Team. Key focus area of his group was novel gene discovery for various traits (Ag Traits, Input and Output traits), including developing competencies such as CRISPR Cas enabled advanced breeding. His group employed both native traits, advanced breeding as well as transgenic approaches for crop improvement. He built a state-of-the art and best-in class facility for cutting edge research and development for the organization.
Dr Amitabh completed his Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology from University of Delhi South Campus, New Delhi India. Subsequently he got trained in high-throughput rice genomics at the Rice Genome Research Program, Japan on a Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India fellowship and after returning to India helped to jump start the Indian Rice Genome Sequencing Program (IRGSP), which was part of the International Rice Genome Sequencing Program (IRGSP).
Before joining DuPont Pioneer, Amitabh did his post-doctoral studies (2002-2007) with Prof Dave Jackson at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, USA. During this time, he worked on two multi-million-dollar NSF funded projects on Arabidopsis and maize on cell biology and genomics.
Dr Amitabh is passionate about access of latest technologies to the farmers and improvement of farm productivity. He enjoys watching cricket whenever time permits and is a self-professed foodie.

Dr Girdhar K. Pandey is working as Professor in the Department of Plant Molecular Biology, Delhi University South Campus. His group’s research interest is to understand the detail mechanistic interplay of signal transduction networks in plant under mineral nutrient deficiency (mostly K+, Ca2+ and NO3-) and abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity and oxidative stresses. His group is working on coding and decoding of mineral nutrient deficiency and abiotic stress signals by studying several signaling components in Arabidopsis and rice by using the tools of genomics and functional genomics.
He has been awarded with Far Eastern Regional Research Organization (FERRO) fellowship by United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, MD (1998). Later, he was awarded with Indian National Science Academy (INSA)-Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) bilateral exchange visiting scientist fellowship in 2011. Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India has awarded him DBT-CREST Award in 2011-2012. He has also been awarded as Visiting Professor in Capital Normal University, Beijing and Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences (JAAS), Nanjing, China in year 2012 and 2015, respectively. In year 2015, DBT awarded him highly prestigious award in biological sciences, National Bioscience Career Development Award and he has been elected as Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) in 2016. Subsequently in year 2017, he has been awarded Foreign Expert Award and Visiting Professor by Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences (JAAS), Nanjing, China. He has been elected as Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), New Delhi in 2018. Also Indian Society of Plant Physiology, New Delhi has conferred him J.J. Chinoy Gold medal award in 2018.
Visit his Lab web-page for further information about research work: https://sites.google.com/site/gkplab/home; http://www.dpmb.ac.in/index.php?page=girdhar-pandey

Dr. Mukesh Jain is currently a Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Trained as molecular biologist, he has worked extensively in the area of Plant Genomics, Biotechnology and Computational Biology, and published more than 100 articles in international refereed journals of high repute and impact factor with about 8000 citations. 
Prof. Jain has made significant contribution in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying various abiotic stress responses and seed development, and identified several novel key candidate genes and pathways involved in these agronomic traits. 
For his scientific contributions, Dr. Jain has been honored with several awards. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences India, Allahabad and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi. He has been honored with Tata Innovation Fellowship, National Bioscience Award, NASI-SCOPUS Young Scientist Award, Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award, and several young scientist awards from different national academies. Dr. Jain is serving on the editorial board of reputed international journals, such as Frontiers in Plant Science, Scientific Reports, Peer J and PLoS ONE. 
Dr. Jain’s current research interests include understanding of epigenetic and chromatin-level regulation of abiotic stress responses and seed development in crop plants using integrated multi-omics and systems biology approaches.

Dr. Babu Valliyodan is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics at the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Lincoln University, Jefferson City, MO, USA. In addition, Dr. Valliyodan is an Adjunct faculty at the Division of Plant Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA. Prior to the current position, he was a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Soybean Biotechnology and Division of Plant Sciences, University of Missouri (MU), Columbia for several years. During his tenure at the University of Missouri, Dr. Valliyodan’ s research focused on soybean genetics and genomics and developing genetic and molecular tools for crop improvement. Dr. Valliyodan coordinated large scale genome sequencing project for soybean and provided the genome sequence information to the public breeding programs and farmers. Also, at MU, Dr. Valliyodan conducted genotype-phenotype associations and identified key alleles/genes for both abiotic stress tolerance and yield component traits. The current research focuses of Dr. Valliyodan at the Lincoln University are: application of contemporary genetic and genomic technologies to study genome variation and complex trait improvement in legumes and other major crops. This includes dissecting the molecular/biochemical regulation of stress tolerance traits, studying the role of plant-microbiome (rhizobiome) interactions, and genome editing for water and nutrient use efficiency, plant performance and yield improvement. 

Prof. Jaswinder Singh is currently serving in the faculty of the Department of Plant Science, McGill University, Canada. After completing his PhD from CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra Australia, he did his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the enhancement of quality traits, and stress tolerance in crop plants using functional genomics and biotechnological approaches. His laboratory is actively researching germination/ dormancy from a unique perspective. His group has recently discovered a novel barley gene, which regulates the β-glucan activity during germination. His findings have shown for the first time the reversal of epigenetic silencing in plants. He has published over 50 research articles and delivered over 60 invited talks in international meetings and renowned academic institutes. He is the Director of the recently funded multi-institutional NSERC-CREATE program on the “Genome Editing for Food Security and Environmental Sustainability”. He has been in many National (AAFC, NSERC) and International (US-DOE) grant review panels. He co-chaired two conferences in 2014 (9th Canadian Plant Biotechnology Conference) and 2016 (joint conference of CSA-CSHS). He served in various executive positions in different plant science societies, notably as the President of the Canadian Society of Agronomy (2018-19), Eastern Director of the Canadian Society of Agronomy (2010-12), Membership Officer of the Canadian Association of Plant Biotechnology (2013-14) and member of International Affairs Committee of the American Society of Plant Biologists (2012-15). He is currently serving as Past President of the Canadian Society of Agronomy and sit in the Plant Canada Board. He chaired of the Gleb Krotkov award committee of the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists in 2018-19 and recently appointed to serve in the Corresponding member award committee of the American Society of Plant Biologists (2019-23). The Canadian Society of Plant Biologists recognized him with prestigious C. D. Nelson award in 2018 for his outstanding contribution to plant science.

Dr. Sivakumar Sukumaran is a lead scientist at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) working on spring wheat pre-breeding integrating physiological and molecular breeding approaches. Dr Sukumaran integrates knowledge in plant breeding, quantitative genetics, molecular breeding and crop physiology with the goal of developing pre-bred germplasm for changing climates. Current research includes Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) with diverse germplasm, Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping, Genomic Selection (GS) strategies to efficiently integrate complex traits into pre-breeding pipelines, Genotype-by-Environment Interaction (GEI) and Genetic Dissections of Complex Traits.

Dr Rajeev Gupta is a result oriented and accomplished Agricultural Biotechnologist, Molecular Biologist, Molecular Geneticist and a successful leader with a PhD and PDF from University of Cambridge, UK and UC Berkeley, USA, respectively. Currently Dr Gupta is the Principal Scientist and Theme Leader for Genomics and Trait Discovery  at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT.org), based in Hyderabad, India. In addition, Dr Gupta is also leading flagship program on Pre-Breeding & Trait Discovery in CGIAR research program on Grain Legumes & Dryland Cereals (gldc.cgiar.org). Dr Gupta joined ICRISAT after almost two decades of professional career abroad mostly in the USA working in various public (UC Berkeley) and private sectors (DuPont Pioneer) handling multiple projects in Ag Biotechnology and crop improvement. At ICRISAT, Dr Gupta leads a team of scientists working on developing and applying modern resources, tools and technologies in genomics, genetics and trait discovery programs in ICRISAT’s mandate cereals (sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet) and grain legumes (chickpea, groundnut, pigeonpea) to accelerate the rate of genetic gains to improve the income and livelihood of small holder farmers in semi-arid tropics regions of south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. With more than two decades of international experience in non-profit, public and private sectors, Dr Gupta has published more than 35 research articles in high impact international journals such as Nature, PNAS, The Plant Cell, The Plant Journal, Plant Physiology, Plant Biotechnology Journal, Plant Molecular Biology etc. in addition to around 50 patent applications related to abiotic stress tolerance and yield enhancement in crops.

 Dr. Sachin Rustgi is currently affiliated as Assistant Professor of Molecular Breeding at the Clemson University Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences and School of Health Research, as well as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Washington State University Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. He holds a master’s degree in Botany from the M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly and a Ph.D. degree in Genetics and Plant Breeding from the C.C.S. University, Meerut. Dr. Rustgi’s research primarily focuses on the development of nutritionally enhanced and safe to consume cereals and legumes, and novel strategies to mitigate the major insect or fungal pests of the primary South Carolina crops. To achieve these targets, he is using a combination of breeding strategies, including induced mutagenesis, molecular marker-assisted selection, RNA interference, and genome editing. His research has resulted in several high impact publications in internationally recognized journals, such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the Plant Journal, Journal of Experimental Botany, and Nutrients. Given his academic contributions, he was awarded the 2014 Faculty Excellence in Research Award of the WSU College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences and invited to join the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Singh has made an outstanding contribution in the management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in India. His research interest reflects a continuum of high quality basic and strategic research in pulses. He has developed 3 core sets, 2 reference sets, registered 5 genetic stocks, 25 gene sequences, 06 farmer varieties and 2 lentil varieties developed through distant hybridization for rainfed areas of north-western Indian Himalaya. Conducted 10 explorations on crop wild relatives (CWRs) and explored >900 wild germplasm of cereals, oilseeds and pulses. He is instrumental to initiate pre-breeding in chickpea and lentil in India for securing national nutritional demand. His pioneer research work on understanding the population structure and diversity assessment of global wild species of lentil and chickpea is very well known. This has led to the identification of most target gene sources in the secondary and tertiary gene pools of chickpea and lentil for biofortification of cultivated varieties including several yield and major biotic and abiotic stress related traits were successfully incorporated in cultivated backgrounds of these two important pulse crops. Successful deployment of marker assisted breeding for introgression of two most promising superior haplotypes with high seed weight and high pod number from cultivated and wild species into high yielding varieties of chickpea for improving their overall yield and productivity.

Dr. Sundaram completed his B.Sc. (Agri) from TNAU- Coimbatore, M.Sc. (Agri) in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology as a DBT Research Fellow and PhD in Plant Sciences at University of Hyderabad as a CSIR-JRF.

He joined ICAR-IIRR (then known as Directorate of Rice Research) through Agricultural Research Service as a Scientist in the Biotechnology Section in 1998. Since then he has been working as a rice molecular breeder, focusing on studies related to biotic stress resistance, hybrid rice applications of biotechnology in addition to product development through transgenic breeding.

In collaboration with CCMB, Hyderabad, his group was instrumental in development and release of a high yielding, bacterial blight resistant, fine-grain type rice variety possessing low glycemic index (50.9), named Improved Samba Mahsuri (RPBio-226), which is one of the first marker-assisted selection (MAS) products in the country and is being cultivated in > 1,50,000 ha across the country. This development has paved the way for development of several improved breeding lines of varieties and hybrid rice parental lines possessing biotic stress resistance and abiotic stress tolerance by Dr. Sundaram. His team has developed a molecular marker-based strategy for rapid and reliable estimation of purity of seed-lots of rice hybrids and parental lines.

Presently, he is working on genetics and breeding for low soil P tolerance in rice, functional genomics studies related to rice-biotic stress interactions, characterization and improvement of hybrid rice related traits, enhancing biological nitrogen fixation in rice ecosystem, yield improvement through genomics-assisted breeding, besides his well recognized work on development of biotic stress resistance and yield in rice.

He has undergone intensive training on rice biotechnology at International Rice Research Institute in 2003. In 2005, he went to Cornell University, USA as an USAID-ABSPII Fellow to pursue research work on development of abiotic stress tolerant transgenic rice. Later in 2012, he went to Iowa State University and Cornell University, USA to pursue Post Doctoral studies on rice-bacterial blight interaction as an Indo-US (IUSSTF) fellow.

He has handled several externally funded research projects, published his works in many International (89) and National (31) Journals and has authored > 40 books/book chapters, technical bulletins and popular articles related to biotechnology.

He is the recipient of several awards and recognitions which include Lal Bahadur Shastri Outstanding Young Scientist Award of ICAR in 2011, Hari Om Ashram Trust Award of ICAR in 2012, CSIR Innovation Award for Rural Development in 2013, PN Behl Award for Excellence in Crop Sciences (2012-13), DBT Award for Biotechnology Product and Process Development and commercialization (2015).

Besides these, he is also a Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (2019), Fellow of Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding (2017), Associate of NAAS (2013), DST-Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation Travel grant (2014), USAID Fellowship (2005), IUSSTF Fellowship (2011), serving as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Rice Research, Academic Editor of PLos One Journal, Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology and is also serving as a member of several National Committees including EDV Committee of PPV & FRA, Committee on DNA fingerprinting of crops, BIRAC Technical Advisory and Site Visit Committee, etc.

Professor Rajeev K Varshney, JC Bose National Fellow is a Research Program Director, Genetic Gains & Director, Center of Excellence in Genomics and Systems Biology at ICRISAT. Before joining ICRISAT in 2005, he worked at IPK-Gatersleben, Germany for five years. He is recognized as a leader in genome sequencing, genomics-assisted breeding, translational genomics and capacity building in international agriculture. He has made a pioneering contribution by integrating advanced discoveries in genomics with crop improvement in developing countries. Among different noted contributions, he has genome sequences of 9 crops including pigeonpea, chickpea, peanut and pearl millet and several molecular breeding products in chickpea, peanut and pigeonpea to his credit.

Prof Varshney is an elected fellow of all four science academies of India (INSA, NASI, IASc, NAAS) as well as several foreign science academies including German National Science Academy, The World Academy of Science, American Association for Advancement of Science, Crop Science Society of America, and American Society of Agronomy. He is recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award from Government of India, GD Birla Award for Scientific Research amongst many prestigious awards. He has been recognized as highly cited researcher by Thomson Reuters (Clarivate Analytics) for last 5 years in row, one of 10 most influential Indian scientists by The Times of India, a leading Indian daily newspaper and one of 200 changemakers in society in India by Careers360 magazine.

Dr. Lenka completed his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa Campus, New Delhi and a recipient of ISCA-National Young Scientist award in Plant Science. He did his Postdoctoral Research on Taxol biosynthetic at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. Dr. Lenka is a recipient of Israel Govt. postdoctoral fellowship and conducted a seminal piece of work at Agricultural Research Organization – Govt. of Israel in collaboration with Harvard University, Cambridge, MA on health-promoting metabolites. He worked as team lead and Manager (Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics), Reliance Industries Limited, India (a Fortune Global 500 company), and worked on micro-algae.  Dr. Lenka worked as a research scientist at IMET, Baltimore on algal biotechnology. Dr. Lenka’s current research interest at TDNBC is focused on high-value nutraceuticals, flavor, and biopharmaceuticals using functional genomics and CRISPR mediated high-throughput genome editing and synthetic biology tools from plants.