Harnessing Plant Stimulating Molecules

Dr. M. Iqbal R. Khan’s current research interests are the physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in flooding tolerance and looking for suitable germplasm donors for breeding purpose. Working on the metabolism of plants under different abiotic stresses, Dr. Khan has found a significant role of phytohormones in the regulation of plant growth and development and have suggested that phytohormones play an important in controlling stress responses and interacts in coordination with each other for defense signal networking to fine tune tolerance mechanisms. Dr. Khan has published more than 35 journal articles, 07 book chapters and has edited two books. He has received various research fellowships including UGC-MANF, DBT-RA, SERB-DST Young scientist, SERB-NPDF and IRRI-PDF. He has been recognized as Young Scientist of the Year, receiving the award from Scientific and Environmental Research Institute, India and Junior Scientist of the Year, receiving the award from National Environmental Science Academy New Delhi, India. He has been guest editor of “Ethylene: A key regulatory molecule in plants" in Frontiers in Plant Science. Dr. Palakolanu Sudhakar Reddy is a Scientist (DST-INSPIRE faculty fellow) working under the Cell, Molecular biology and Genetic engineering theme at ICRISAT. He has completed his PhD from International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, where he worked on “Identification and characterization of the Heat Shock Proteins from Pennisetum glaucum”. He was an integral part of the team for developing high-throughput, low-cost methodologies for the isolation of promoters and genes, sequencing for phage DNA and identification of stable reference genes for qPCR studies. He has been awarded with several International and National awards, including Leibniz-DAAD Postdoctoral Fellowship from German Academic Exchange Service, Germany, Young Scientist and INSPIRE Faculty Awards from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. He is associate fellow of Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences from 2015. He has worked in Germany and Philippines on genomics and molecular aspects of abiotic stress tolerance and genome editing. He has published more than 32 research articles in international peer reviewed journals and also has 5 book chapters and a patent to his credit. He is a reviewer of several reputed international journals, including Frontiers in plant science, Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, BMC Genomics, Environmental and Experimental Botany, Gene and PLoS ONE. Area of expertise: Functional genomics, Gene expression, Molecular biology and Genome editing

• 1. Introduction of plant stimulating molecules: Global trend on climate change and agro-food sustainability2. Plant hormones and their multifaceted role in managing crop under environmental shocks3. Plant secondary messengers guarding the precincts of environmental injuries4. Gasotransmitters interference in mediating environmental stress protection in crop5. Reactive oxygen species in plant physiology under climatic and biotic interferences6. Reactive nitrogen species: The new arrivals in crop stress management7. Sugars stimulating behavior to transit source-sink development under environmental stress8. Lipid species. A hub of plant stimulating networks under environment stress9. Isoprenoid-derivatives’ functions in crop stress resilience10. Plant bioactive polypeptides in stimulating environmental resilience11. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) role under environmental stress-mediated wounding reactions12. Mitogenic signaling molecules-mediated environmental stress tolerance in crop system13. Heterotrimeric G protein-coupled environmental stress responses14. Patatan phospholipase-mediated molecular stimulation in plants15. Photoreceptors role in exciting plant photomorphogenesis under climatic variations16. Manipulation of nanoparticles stimulating metabolic pathways in planta and microbial systems17. Stimulating molecules and RNA silencing. An approach to improve plant nutrient efficiency18. Biostimulants in inter-plant communications and microbiome interactions: Building a new age of Green Revolution19. Mobile signals mediating systemic signaling using recent advancements in plant biotechnology20. CRISPR/Cas in breeding system to develop crop tolerance and protect food security21. Computational modeling of plant molecules for simulating plant metabolic pathways with model fidelity