Advances in Endophytic Fungal Research

Bhim Pratap SinghDr. Bhim Pratap Singh working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Aizawl, Mizoram University, India, has more than 10 years of research experience in the field of molecular microbiology, biocontrol of plant diseases, mushroom diversity, biosynthetic potential of actinobacteria and fungi associated with medicinal plants. He has worked for last 10 years on microbial diversity and explored the microbial population associated with medicinal plants and rhizospheric soils. His group has documented the wild mushroom of from Mizoram, Northeast India. He has completed seven externally funded research projects on screening and characterization of endophytic actibacteria and fungi associated with medicinal plants and the rhizospheric soils funded by several funding agencies. Dr. Singh has organized several international and national conferences and seminars including India-UK scientific seminar jointly funded by the British Council andthe Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi. Dr. Singh has been awarded with several honors like young scientist award in 2014 from Scientific and education Research Society, India and Best achievement award for the contribution to the Asian PGPR society, USA. Dr. Singh is serving ad editors of several reputed peer reviewed scientific journals like Frontiers in Microbiology, Plos ONE etc., and he is an active member of several national and international professional bodies like Asian PGPR Society, Association of Microbiologists of India, MSI, ISCA etc.. His group has published more than 45 research papers in SCI journals and 16 book chapters in the books published by national and international publishers. Dr. Singh has also edited two books published from Springer and Elsevier publications. Dr. Singh has guided 4 Ph.D students and 3 M.Phil students till date.

• Preface.- Endophytic fungi associated with medicinal plants.- Role of endophytic fungi in agriculture.- Endophytic fungi as a alternative source for the discovery of novel drugs.- Spectroscopic based methods of assessing microbial natural products from endophytic fungi.- Synthesis of nanoparticles from endophytic fungi and their application in agriculture and health.- Biosynthetic potential of endophytic fungi with a focus on antimicrobial biosynthetic genes.- Role of endophytic fungi in biofilm production as an alternative tool to control human pathogens.- Plant growth promoting mechanisms of endophytic fungi associated with medicinal plants.- Antibiotics of endophytic fungal origin: an overview of research carried out in last three decades.- Endophytic fungi and their role in bioremediation.- Molecular methods used for the identification of endophytic fungi.- Future prospects of endophytic fungal research in health and agriculture.- Endophytic fungi as a source of lignocellulose degrading enzymes for industrial application.- Appendix I: Media used in the recovery of endophytic fungi.- Appendix II: Biosynthetic genes along with their amplification conditions.- Index.