Genetic Manipulation in Plants for Mitigation of Climate Change

Dr Pawan K. Jaiwal is presently working as a Professor in the Centre for Biotechnology at the M.D. University, Rohtak, India and has served at various administrative positions as the Director, Dean (presently), chairman/ member of statuary bodies at University. He has 30 years of PG teaching and 35 years of research experience and has published about 85 original research papers, 27 book chapters, review articles and 14 books. He has guided over 68 M.Sc. and M. Phil. students for their Dissertations and 20 Ph.D. students for their degree. He is a member of several academic bodies and is in the Editorial Board of four International research journals. Dr Jaiwal has been awarded DST Young Scientist Project, INSA Visiting Fellowship by INSA, New Delhi, DBT Overseas Associateship by DBT, New Delhi and Prof H S Srivastava Gold medal by National Academy of Environmental Sciences, Lucknow, India. He has several international fellowships to his credit and has visited many countries for academic contributions including laboratory of Prof Ingo Potrykus at the Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland. His current research interests are metabolic engineering for resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses, nutrient use efficiency and nutritional quality improvement in pulses especially Vigna species, oil crops (ze: 13.3333330154419px;">Brassica juncea and Sesame) and cereals (wheat). Dr. Rana Pra tap Singh is presently working as professor in the  Department of Environmental Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar (A Central) University, Lucknow, (India). He has contributed significantly in understanding of ammonia assimilation and N-metabolism in plants. Besides, he has contributed some new knowledge on toxicity and remediation of soil and water ecosystems. He has 30 years of PG teaching and 35 years of research and 10 years of administrative experiences and has published about 100 original research papers, 14 review articles and 24 book chapters and 16 books. He has guided over 100 M.Sc. and M. Phil students for their Dissertations and 27 Ph.D. students for their degree. Professor Singh is Editor-in-Chief of an International Journal “Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants and Editor of “Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability”. He has 9 academic awards and international fellowships to his credit and has visited many countries for academic contributions. Prof. Om Parkash Dhankher is a Plant Biotechnologist (Associate Professor) in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (U.S.A.). He developed the first transgenic plant based approach for arsenic phytoremediation. Prof. Dhankher has published more than 40 publications in high impact factor journals including Nature Biotech and was awarded several patents. His r esearch was also featured in headlines on National Geographic Channel, ABC, Reuter etc. His research focus is multidisciplinary in nature ranging from crop improvements, phytoremediation to biofuels. He is Editor of the International Journal Plant Biology Research; Associate Editor of Frontier’s Agricultural Biological Chemistry, Editorial board member of two international journals and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). He has supervised seven Ph.D students, three M.Sc students, four visiting Professors, five postdoctoral Research Associates, and over a dozen Undergraduate honours thesis students and has several ongoing collaborations with researchers in India, China, Italy, Egypt, and USA.

1. Plant responses to tropospheric ozone.- 2. Plant heat stress response and thermotolerance.- 3. Genetic improvement of drought resistance in rice.- 4. Plant breeding for flood tolerance: advances and limitations. 5. Polyamine biosynthesis engineering as a tool to improve plant resistance to abiotic stress.- 6. Enhancing nutrient starvation tolerance in rice.- 7. Engineered Plants for Heavy Metals and Metalloids Tolerance.- 8. Prospects of genetic manipulation for enhanced heavy metal tolerance and bioremediation in relation to climate change.- 9. Biotechnological approaches to mitigate adverse effects of extreme climatic factors on plant productivity.- 10. Anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide modifies plant-insect interactions.- 11. GM crops for developing world in the era of climate change: for increase of farmer’s income, poverty alleviation, nutrition and health.