Molecular Stress Physiology of Plants

Prof. Gyana Ranjan Rout is the Head of Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar, India. Prof. Rout has worked in various aspects of plant sciences for over 25 years. He has made significant contributions in the field of plant improvement and propagation of various plant species, heavy metal toxicity and its tolerant mechanism, reclamation of mine through phytoremediation and DNA fingerprinting. Prof. Rout was elected as a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc) in 1999 in the field of Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology. He is awarded Samanta Chandra Shekhar award in 2005 honored by Orissa Bigyan Academy, Govt. of Odisha, for contributions to Life Sciences. Prof. Rout has 25 years of research and teaching experience in the field of plant biotechnology and heavy metal stress mechanism. He has published 175 research papers and 16 review chapters published in national and international peer reviewed journals and 20 book chapters in contributory volumes. He has also been a Principal Investigator of 10 major research projects funded by ICAR, DBT and NMPB. Dr. Anath Bandhu is a Associate Professor in Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Dr. Das has worked assiduously in various aspects of plant sciences for over 26 years. He has made significant contributions in the field of cytotaxonomy, cytometry, DNA fingerprinting and molecular physiology in various groups of medicinal plants, mangroves, cacti, orchids and sweet gourd. He has reported for the first time chromosome number, karyotype and genome size in ~350 species of angiosperms, especially on Indian mangroves that underpinned mining of de novo genomic diversity in diploids and polyploids. Molecular phylogeny of mangroves using various DNA markers resolved many discrepancies in taxonomic classifications. He is also working in molecular basis of high salt adaptation of secretor and non-secretor mangroves to find out salt stress resistant gene. His work on salt stress on mangroves has generated interest to study these fascinating processes of molecular physiology in other laboratories as evidenced by extensive citation of his work. He has published more than 150 research papers in international journals, 2 books, 10 book chapters, 10 review articles. Dr. Das is honored with Hiralal Chakrabarty Award of ISCA and Samanta Chandra Sekhar award by Orissa Bigya Academy and recipient of DBT Overseas and National Associateships, Govt. of India; RI-LAT Fellowship (UK), MIF Fellowship (Japan).