Heavy Metals Stress Resilience in Plants: Phytohormones and Nanomaterials Interactions

Chandra Shekhar Seth is an associate professor at the Department of Botany, University of Delhi, New Delhi, in India. He currently teaches courses on plant physiology and biochemistry, plant physiology and biochemistry, algae, and phytohormones assisted abiotic stress management in plants, among others. His major research interests include how various phytohormones – particularly salicyclic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), and nitric oxide (NO) mitigate the heavy metals (HMs) and salinity induce toxicity in plants, photosynthesis, and nitrogen metabolism under abiotic stress, and the role of nanomaterials in mitigating HMs and salt stresses in plants. He is a fellow of two prestigious societies in India, namely Fellow of the Academy of Environmental Biology (FAEB) Lucknow (U.P.), and Fellow Society for Plant Research (FSPR) Meerut, UP. Dr. Seth has published numerous peer reviewed research papers, review papers, and several books and book chapters related to this field.

Shivendra V. Sahi is a leading researcher in plant-mediated synthesis of nanoparticles, phytoremediation, and gene expression in plants. His main research interest is in the area of Nano-biotechnology. Currently, Dr. Sahi is a professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, USA. He has published many peer-reviewed articles, presented at various conferences, and received many research awards. Dr. Sahi has received more than $ 4 million in grant funding. He has mentored many postdocs, technicians, and graduate and undergraduate students. Aside from being an innovator and research enthusiast, Dr. Sahi still enjoys teaching and mentoring many students. He continues to amaze the scientific world with his motivation and dedication to developing cutting-edge research in Nano-biotechnology.

Jagadis Gupta Kapuganti is a Scientist V at the DBT-National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi, in India. His research group works on various projects such as the role of phytoglobin-nitric oxide cycle in plant tolerance of hypoxia, understanding the role of nitrogen nutrition on vitamin B6 metabolism in chickpea for sustainable agricultural practices, and transgenic approach for improving postharvest quality of fruits, among others. He has received fellowships such as the Marie Curie Fellowship, Max Planck Fellowship, Ramalingaswami fellowship, Ramanujan fellowship, and DST-DAAD fellow. Dr. Kapuganti is the founder of Fruvetech Pvt Ltd and has 18 National and International patents and more than 100 publications with international journals.

Krishan K. Verma is working a foreign expert at Sugarcane Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning, Guangxi, China. He has 13 years of research experience in the field of biotic and abiotic stresses, i.e., environmental toxicology, plant-molecular biology, and metallic nanoparticles. His research focuses on environmental toxicology, bio-engineering modeling, plant physiology, molecular biology, their impacts on growth, physiological and molecular adaptation strategies of plants to unfavorable environmental situations, and how they affect plant structure and productivity. He has published more than 95 scientific research articles and reviews, 10 books, and 12 book chapters. He serves as an editorial board member of various peer reviewed journals.

Mukesh Meena is an assistant professor at the Department of Botany at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, in India. His areas of research and work expertise are; plant-microbial interactions, fungal biology, toxic metabolites, plant-pathogen interaction, plant growth promoting microbes, fungal bio-molecules, induced resistance, programmed cell death, biological control, rhizobacteria, environment, heavy metal stress, and molecular markers. He has been honored with several fellowship awards in his career including Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF), UGC Research Fellowship in Science. He has authored several research articles related to isolation and characterization of fungal toxins, applications of fungal glucose oxidase, fungal toxins, production and technological applications of enzymes from microbial sources, beneficial microbes for disease suppression and plant growth promotion. He has published more than 80 peer reviewed international publications and more than 45 book chapters. He has also published three books with international publishers.