Swati Joshi is currently a Scientist at the ICMR-National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) in Ahmedabad, India. She previously served as Assistant Professor and BioCARe Women Scientist in the School of Life Sciences at Central University of Gujarat (CUG). Dr. Joshi earned a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Delhi, working at the interface of microbiology, biotechnology and molecular biology using next gen platforms to develop industrial strains of methylotrophic Pichia sp. Her research focuses on applied microbiology, biotechnology, microbial enzymes, proteins, phage discovery, and microbe-derived molecules for therapeutic and diagnostic applications especially for occupational health. She has published over 27 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, book chapters, and edited two Elsevier books. Dr. Joshi is a life member of BRSI, MSI, AMI, and ILS and has been recognized with the Dr. M. J. Thirumalachar Young Scientist Award (Mycological Society of India) and Young Scientist Award (Association of Microbiologists of India).Digvijay Verma has been working in the field of genomics and metagenomics for the last 10 years. He has expertise in heterologous expression of genes from extreme environments into the various Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial hosts. His research work on proteins reflects his extensive understanding of industrial biotechnology and extremophilic microorganisms. His laboratory is engaged in exploiting therapeutic bioactive molecules from extreme habitats using metagenomic approaches. He is also in a phase of developing pipelines for robust microbiome analysis. Dr. Verma has also been working on analyzing the oral microbiome from the Indian community and the influence of external risk factors on the overall oral bacterial composition. He is a life member of many scientific organizations like the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI), Biotech Research Society of India (BRSI), and Indian Science Congress (ISC). He is coauthor of Microorganisms for Sustainable Environment and Health (Elsevier, 2020). Ravi Kr. Gupta was awarded with several national level scholarships from CSIR and ICMR during his doctoral study and his PhD thesis was awarded Dr. M. M. Dhar Award. Then he moved to the USA as a postdoctoral fellow to enhance his research skills with the state-of-the art techniques in genes and small non-coding RNA regulation in bacteria. Currently he works as assistant professor of microbiology at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A Central University). His long-term research goals are to better understand the regulatory mechanism of small non-coding RNAs and their role in human and animal pathogens that may lead to the development of alternative therapeutic approach to treat infections. His laboratory is also working to identify novel antimicrobials from natural sources against gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens.
