Phytochemical Genomics

Dr. Mallappa Kumara Swamy is working as a Professor, Department of Biotechnology at East West College of Science (Affiliated to Bangalore University), Bengaluru, India. He has completed his Postdoctoral Research at the Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, Malaysia from 2014-2018. Before that, he had worked as an Associate Professor and Head, Department of Biotechnology at Padmashree Institute of Management and Sciences, Bangalore University, Bengaluru, India. He obtained his PhD (Biotechnology) from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, India in 2013. He is having more than 18 years of teaching and research experience in the fields of plant biotechnology, microbiology, secondary metabolites production, Phytochemistry, biomedicine and bioactive studies. To his credit, he has published more than 66 research publications in peer- reviewed journals and 50 book chapters in reputed book publishers. So far, he has edited14 books with Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group), USA and Studium Press, India. He is also serving as the Editorial board member and reviewer for few high impact international journals. Presently, he is working in the area of natural products research, plant cell and tissue culture technology for bioactive compounds production and evaluation of their bioactivities. His research is focused on nanobiotechnology for medical applications and plant omics studies.  Dr. Ajay Kumar is working as Assistant Professor of Plant Science at Central University of Kerala, India. He has obtained is PhD from School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi under the guidance of Dr. Nirala Ramchairy who is a renowned crop scientist. Dr. Ajay has more than 6 years of teaching and research experience and has published several research papers, review articles and book chapters in reputed journals and books respectively. He is also currently holding the position of Joint Director, Centre for Sustainability, Corporate Relations and Social Responsibility, Central University of Kerala, Kerala, India. His areas of research include phytochemical genomics, medicinal plants, mangrove genomics, food security and abiotic stresses. He has been a member of Academic Council, Central University of Kerala in the past and currently he is the member of the University Court. He has successfully guided more than 30 Post Graduate students for their dissertations.

1.Phytochemical genomics: integration of omics approaches for understanding genomic basis of phytochemicals.- 2.Gene-metabolite networks.- 3.Computational approaches in phytochemical genomics.- 4.Databases relevant to phytochemicals and genes responsible.- 5.Biosynthetic pathways of important metabolites using genomics and metabolomics approaches.- 6.Phytochemical diversity and the diverse roles of phytochemicals in plants.- 7.Role of genomics and metabolomics for breeding crops with higher quantity of metabolites.- 8.Metabolic quantitative trait loci mapping of medicinal plants and crops.- 9.Tools for metabolomics analysis of plants.- 10.Trichomes as an important chemical factories of metabolites.- 11.Stress and metabolites.- 12.Evolution of metabolite diversity and defense mechanisms in plants.- 13.Pathway engineering of genes.- 14.Demand-supply of phytochemicals and the need for ensuring sustainable supply of plants.- 15.Drug discovery and omics.- 16.Gene editing technologies for scaling up production of secondary metabolites.- 17.Medicinal plants and use of omics approaches.- 18.Metabolomics of important medicinal plants.- 19.Transcriptomics of important medicinal plants.