Dr Govind Pratap Rao is working as a Principal Scientist (Plant Pathology) at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He did his M.Sc (Botany) and Ph.D. in Plant Virology from Gorakhpur University. He did Post Doc at University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA with Prof R.E. Ford on Characterization of Sugarcane mosaic and maize dwarf mosaic viruses in 1994. Dr Rao has 30 years of research experience on plant pathology especially on plant virology and phytoplasmas. He did significant contributions in characterization of viruses infecting cucurbits, sugarcane, maize and sorghum. He has published over 130 research publications and authored and edited nearly 17 books to his credit. He has also guided 3 MSc and 12 PhD students on different aspects of plant pathology. He has been worked in different capacities as Scientific Officer, Sr Scientific Officer (Pl Pathology), Head , Div Plant Pathology and Officer-in-Charge at Research Stations of UPCouncil of Sugarcane Research centres at Seorahi, Gorakhpur and Shahjahanpur from 1987 to 2010. He has been awarded several prestigious awards to his credit. The most important ones are : National Biotechnology Associateship Award (1991-1992), DBT, Govt. of India; Young Scientist Award (1994-1995) from DST, Govt. of India; Overseas BOYSCAST Award (1996) from DST, Govt. of India; President Award, Society for General Microbiology, UK, 1998; Best U.P. Agriculture Scientist Award (UPCAR) ,Govt of Uttar Pradesh in 2002; Vigyan Ratna Award by CST, Govt. of UP for the year 2003-2004; Jin Xiu Qiu Award in 2006 by People’s Govt of Guangxi Province, Nanning, China; Global Award of Excellence, IS 2008, Al-Ahrish, Egypt; Dr. Ram Badan Singh Vishisht Krishi Vaigyanik Puraskar-2014 by UPCAR, Lucknow, India and Leadership Excellence Award in Sugarcane Crop Protection by Thailand Society of Sugar Cane Technologists, Bangkok. Dr. Rao is Editor-in-Chiefs of Sugar Tech, an international journal of sugar crops and related industries, and Phytopathogenic Mollicutes, an international journal of phloem limited microrganisms. Dr Rao is also Secretary General of Indian Virological Society, New Delhi and member of several prestigious scientific societies and organizations like, APS,USA; ASM, USA; ISSCT, Mauritius, IPWG, Italy, SSRP, New Delhi and IPS, New Delhi. Besides, Dr Rao has visited over 30 countries as visiting scientists, for invited talk, post doc fellow, research training, panel discussion and for attending workshop and conferences. At present Dr. Rao is working on characterization, epidemiology and management of viruses infected cereal crops, millets and Nicola Fiore is Plant Pathology Associate Professor at the University of Chile, Faculty of Agronomical Sciences, Department of Plant Health, Santiago, Chile. He is Member of the Sociedad Chilena de Fitopatología, Società Italiana di Patologia Vegetale, American Phytopathological Society, Mediterranean Phytopathological Union. He is invited speaker at many national and international meetings and seminars, member of scientific committees of several international meetings on virology/phytoplasmology, referee for numerous scientific international journals. Awards received: Best work format poster in scientific event: 22nd International Conference on Virus and other Graft Transmissible Diseases of Fruit Crop (ICVF), Rome, 3-8 June, 2012. He is responsible of the Phytovirolgy laboratory where he is leading a team of about 15 collaborators/students focusing on the diagnosis, epidemiology and control of plant diseases caused by viruses, viroids and bacteria (including phytoplasmas), applying biological approaches and molecular tools. He has elaborated and participated as researcher or director in 20 research projects. He mentored 3 PhD students, 6 Master students and 6 undergraduate thesis students. He maintains constant professional contact with wine and table grape producers and fruit producers, advising them on the prevention of diseases caused by viruses, viroids and bacteria. Lia Liefting is a Principal Scientist in the Virology team at the Plant Health and Environment Laboratory at the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in New Zealand. The overall role of the team involves diagnosing virus and virus-like diseases including phytoplasmas and liberibacters of a wide range of host plants as well as providing technical advice on these diseases. Prior to her role at MPI, Lia completed a PhD and two post-doctoral positions on phytoplasmas. The first post-doc at the University of California at Davis, USA involved sequencing the genome of Western-X disease phytoplasma. On return to New Zealand, Lia’s second post-doc was to sequence the genome of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma australiense’. Both phytoplasma genome sequencing projects wereperformed by Sanger Sequencing prior to the advent of next-generation sequencing. Lia was lead author on the IPPC diagnostic protocols for phytoplasmas and ‘Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum’ and is an Editor for Plant Pathology. Assunta Bertaccini is Plant Pathology associate professor at the University of Bologna, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences. She is Member of the Società Italiana di Patologia Vegetale, American Phytopathological Society, International Organization for Mycoplasmology, and International Society for Horticultural Science. She was invited speaker at many national and international meetings and seminars, member of scientific committees of several international meetings on biotechnology and virology/phytoplasmology, referee for numerous scientific international journals. Her awards are: Premio internazionale di enologia e viticoltura Giuseppe Morsiani for distinguished research in viticulture; Emmy Klienenberger-Nobel award for distinguished research in mycoplasmology; recognition of exceptional leadership and devoted service from the International Committee on Virus and other Graft Transmissible Diseases of Fruit Crops. She is responsible of the Phytobacteriology laboratories where she is leading a team of about 30 collaborators/students mainly working on several aspects of plant bacteriology. Her major research efforts were devoted to study plant diseases associated with phytoplasmas and bacteria applying biological approaches, electron microscopy and molecular tools to identify the microorganisms and to study their biology and epidemiology. Recently in her laboratory the phytoplasma cultivation in complex media was eventually achieved. She mentored 13 PhD students, 9 Plant Pathology specialization students and about 100 undergraduate and master thesis students. She is author or coauthor in more than 800 publications, books and book chapters. She is Editor Chief of “Phytopathogenic Mollicutes” journal, Senior editor of “Phytopathologia Mediterranea” and founded in 2007 and is leading the International Phytoplasmologist Working Group (IPWG) (http://www.ipwgnet.org/).
