Professor Kaijun Zhao obtained his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) majoring in plant genetics and breeding. He conducted postdoctoral researches in the Department of Botany at The University of Hong Kong, where he experienced intensive researches on plant molecular biology. Since 2000 he led his own research group at Institute of Crop Science, CAAS in China. Kaijun’s laboratory is mainly interested in the molecular mechanisms of rice-pathogen interaction and consequently developing resources for rice breeding. He and colleagues cloned the prestigious rice bacterial blight resistance gene Xa23 which has been widely used in rice breeding programs and brought billions of benefits to farmers in China and beyond. Since 2010, Kaijun’s laboratory has been focused on application of genome editing technologies for rice improvement. Based on investigations on the transcription activator-like effector AvrXa23, the lab has developed a simplified method for assembly of TALENs. Meanwhile, the lab has also established the CRISPR-Cas9 system for plant genome editing, which has been successfully adopted for improvement of rice resistance to diseases, rice grain yield and quality. Kaijun is the recipient of several prestigious awards such as Outstanding Scientific and Technological Innovation Award of CAAS, First Prize of China Agricultural Science & Technology Award and First Prize of DBN Science & Technology Award. Prof. Zhao has published more than 130 research papers and serves in the editorial board of several plant biotechnology journals. He was the liaison Scientist of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and currently serves as a Member of PROGRAMME ADVISORY COMMITTEE (PAC), MPOB, Malaysia.Dr. Rukmini Mishra currently serves as Associate Professor and Head in the Department of Botany, School of Applied Sciences, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha, India where she teaches graduate level courses in Plant Genomics and Biotechnology. She is also the coordinator of the Centre for Genetics and Genomics and in this capacity supervises the overall research related to plant genomics, next generation sequencing and data analysis. Dr. Mishra has a PhD in Agricultural Biotechnology from National Rice Research Institute (NRRI-ICAR), India. She is the recipient of the prestigious SERB Young Scientist project Award and SERB Power grant from the Dept. of Science & Technology, Govt. of India and the Talented Young Scientist Fellowship under the TYSP programme of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of China. Her research primarily focuses on molecular marker development and CRISPR/Cas9 based genome editing towards development of resistance against fungal phytopathogens in rice, pepper and other crop species. She has published more than 30 research articles in journals of international repute.Raj Kumar Joshi currently serves as Associate Professor and Head of the Dept. of Biotechnology, Rama Devi Women’s University, India where he teaches graduate level courses on Plant Genomics and Genetic Engineering. He also serves as the Group Leader of the Plant Functional Genomics Group, and in that capacity supervises the overall research activities on the functional aspects of molecular plant-microbe interactions. He has been awarded with the prestigious SERB early career grant and SERB extramural grant from the Dept. of Science and technology, Govt. of India and CREST award from Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt. of India. Dr. Joshi is currently running a successful programme on the delineation of molecular genetic networks in the interaction between plants and fungal phytopathogens. The crop of interest includes Capsicum annuum and Allium cepa. His recent forays into genome editing and precise base editing towards improvement of these crops has been highly productive. Dr. Joshi has published more than 60 research papers and serves in the editorial board of many prestigious plant biotechnology journals
