Dr. Becky Westerdahl, USA

Becky is a University of California (UC) Cooperative Extension Specialist/Professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at UC Davis. Her background includes a PhD in Biology/Nematology from UC Riverside, postdoc work at UC Davis, and being Western Regional Manager for a company that developed and marketed biological insecticides. She collaborates statewide with UC Cooperative Extension Advisors to develop and extend sustainable methods for management of plant parasitic nematodes on annual, perennial and ornamental crops; teaches a graduate course in Management of Plant Parasitic Nematodes; and teaches an online course in General Biology for nonmajors. Her research includes development of trap cropping and biofumigation approaches; and evaluation of resistant plant cultivars, natural products, and soil amendments. California agriculture is in a transition phase from managing nematodes with the use of chemicals, to approaches utilizing non-chemical techniques; and she has been a leader in bringing about this transition. Topic of the lecture Eco-friendly Management of Plant Parasitic Nematodes

Dr. L.M. Suresh, Kenya

Born and brought up in Karnataka, India, Dr. Suresh, and has worked in the field of Plant Pathology for the last 25 years. His professional work focuses on disease diagnosis, surveillance, epidemiology, disease management, and disease resistance. He has developed and optimized disease screening protocols for various fungal, bacterial, viral, phytoplasma, and nematode diseases in maize and in vegetable crops. His passion for pathology has been instrumental in collaboratively developing a world-class research facility in Nairobi, Kenya. This has vastly eased the scientific process of identifying and developing MLN disease-resistant maize hybrids especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Suresh has made an immense contribution to food security in East and Central Africa by mentoring and training tens of students, extension workers, and research workers in plant pathology and inspiring numerous young people to pursue agriculture as a career. In addition, he has published more than 30 articles in leading journals. He has been awarded with more than ten national and international awards for his immense contribution in the field of Plant Pathology. Topic of the lecture Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN): Effort towards containing the spread the spread and impact of a devastating transboundary disease in sub-Saharan Africa

Dr. Daniel P. Roberts, USA

Dan Roberts is a Microbiologist and Research Leader of the USDA-ARS, Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, USA. His research is in molecular plant-microbe interactions and biological control of soil-borne plant pathogens. He also has interests in use of geographic information systems (GIS) in sustainable agriculture. He has over 130 research publications in these research areas. Topic of the lecture Precision agriculture and geospatial techniques for sustainable disease control

Dr. Dilip K. Lakshman, USA

Dilip Lakshman is a Research Plant Pathologist in the Sustainable Agricultural Systems laboratory, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, USA. He obtained a B.Sc. (Ag) Hons. (Visva-Bharati University, West Bengal), an M.Sc. in Plant Pathology (IARI, New Delhi), and a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology (Cornell University, USA). Dr. Lakshman investigated on molecular identification and pathogenesis of viruses, viroids, and fungal pathogens, transgenic disease resistance, and alternative disease control methods. His current research focuses on the genomics of Rhizoctonia groups of soilborne pathogens to understand biology, genetic diversity, and pathology, and to develop anastomosis group-specific identification markers. Topic of the lecture Exploring the Genomic Landscapes of Rhizoctonia solani and Development of RsolaniDB - a Comprehensive Omic Resource for the Soilborne Basidiomycetous Phytopathogen

Dr. R. Velazhahan, Oman

Dr. R. Velazhahan received his B.Sc. degree in Agriculture and M.Sc. degree in Plant Pathology from Annamalai University, India in 1985 and 1987, respectively and his Ph.D. degree in Plant Pathology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India in 1995. He joined the Department of Plant Pathology at TNAU, India in 1988 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2002 and to Professor in 2006. He worked as a Postdoctoral fellow at Kansas State University, USA, from 1995 to 1997. He moved to the Sultan Qaboos University, Oman in 2017 where he is currently working as an Associate Professor. He received many awards including The Rockefeller Foundation Rice Biotechnology Postdoctoral Fellowship award, The Rockefeller Foundation Rice Biotechnology Career Fellowship award, Best Researcher Award of TNAU, Professor Hira Lal Chakravarty award of the Indian Science Congress Association and Biotechnology Overseas Associateship Award of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. He has more than 32 years of teaching and research experience. He has supervised 5 Ph.D. candidates and 13 M.Sc. students. He has authored over 150 research papers in peer reviewed journals and more than 10 book chapters that have received more than 4950 Google Scholar citations with h-index of 34 and i10-index of 88. For his research accomplishments the Indian Phytopathological Society, Society for Biocontrol Advancement, Plant Protection Society of India and National Academy of Biological Sciences have elected him to their fellowships. Topic of the lecture Detoxification of aflatoxins: A promising approach to reduce the risk of aflatoxin contamination of foods and feeds

Dr. Dilantha Fernando, Canada

Dr. Dilantha Fernando is a Dean, professor and plant pathologist at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Dr. Fernando received his PhD from Oregon State University USA. Dilantha was elected a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society in the USA, in 2019. Dilantha was awarded the highest award from the Canadian Phytopathological Society in 2020 – the CPS Award for Outstanding Research. Dilantha also received an award for exemplary research towards sustainable agriculture in 2019 from the International PGPR Community. Dilantha is the current immediate Past-President of the Canadian Phytopathological Society. Topic of the lecture Resistance breeding, MAS, virulence screening, race profiling

Dr. Ranajit Bandyopadhyay, Nigeria

Ranajit Bandyopadhyay received BSc (1974) and MSc (1976) degrees from G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology and Ph.D. from Haryana Agriculture University (1980). Working from ICRISAT-India and IITA-Nigeria, Bandyopadhyay has made invaluable contributions to manage seemingly intractable crop diseases in Africa, Brazil, and the U.S. He co-founded and leads the Africa-wide initiative to scale-up an aflatoxin biocontrol technology to limit crop aflatoxin content. His team registered 14 biocontrol products in 10 African countries. New product development is underway in another 12 countries. Commercial partners manufacture and distribute products in eight countries where smallholder farmers have used them in nearly a million acres. Topic of the lecture Research to commercialization pathway of a public biocontrol innovation: The case of aflatoxin biocontrol in Africa

Dr. Christian Joseph R. Cumagun, USA

Dr. Cumagun is a former professor of plant pathology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in plant pathology, pest management, mycology, microbiology and science in agriculture. He has published more than 60 papers on studies dealing with fungal population genetics, disease resistance, biological control and mycotoxin research. He obtained his BSc in Agriculture and MSc in Plant Pathology from UPLB, and his Doctorate in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany. He took up a pre-doctoral fellowship at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and postdoctoral research at Kobe University, Japan. He was visiting scientist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, Sao Paulo State University in Brazil and at the University of Goettingen in Germany. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Biology at Brigham Young University, Idaho in the USA and Plant Pathology at UPLB. Topic of the lecture Precision agriculture and geospatial techniques for sustainable disease control

Dr. Jayaraj Jayaraman, Trinidad and Tobago

Professor Jayaraj Jayaraman graduated in Agriculture, earning a doctoral degree in Plant Pathology at Annamalai University, India. He served as a senior lecturer at Annamalai University till 1999, later completing his postdoctoral work at the Kansas State University (KSU), USA, on a postdoctoral visiting fellowship up to 2000. He served as Associate Scientist up to 2003 at KSU, USA and later as Senior Scientist at the Simon Fraser University, Canada between 2003 and 2009. In 2009, he joined the UWI as Senior Lecturer in Microbiology and Biotechnology. Since 2014, he has been a Professor of Biotechnology and Plant-Microbiology at the Dept. of Life Sciences, UWI-St. Augustine. His research area spans in the fields of microbiology and biotechnology. His specific research projects focus on Plant-Microbe interactions, elicitor-biomolecules for induced disease resistance, biological control, molecular based disease diagnostics, characterization of emerging pathogens, metabolic engineering, investigation of antimicrobial resistance in bacterial pathogens and identification of novel antimicrobial compounds. Topic of the lecture Developing Integrated disease management systems for sustainable vegetable production in the tropics

Dr. Gomathinayagam Subramanian, South America

I graduated from the University of Madras in 2003 with a Ph.D., in Botany, with Plant Pathology as ancillary. In 2005 I joined the University of Guyana Berbice Campus (West Indies) as lecturer II. Over the years in Guyana, I continued my research, publishing my findings as well as attending various International Conferences to present papers on my research work. Currently I have so far published 63 papers and is the author of two books and two book chapters. In the years that I have been in Guyana, I have gone from Lecturer to Coordinator to Assistant Director to Professor and have been the Director of the University of Guyana Berbice Campus since 2014. For my work in academia and my contributions to the farming community in Guyana, I was the recipient of a special award in 2016 from the Central Corentyne Chamber of Commerce, one of the most vibrant and productive Chambers of Commerce in Guyana. In May 2019 I was the only foreign national to be conferred a National Award by the people of Guyana when I received the Golden Arrow of Achievement from the President of Guyana. In August 2019 I was elected Vice President of the Guyana Chess Federation, I have been a member of the Berbice Chess Association since its launching in 2017. I also a member of CARISCIENCE, the Caribbean Food Crops Society and the Caribbean Academy of Science. Topic of the lecture Trichoderma harzianum, a multipotential organism for biological control of Plant Pathogens

Dr. R. Sridhar, India

Education & training: (i) Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, India, (ii) Post-doctoral work (IRRI, Philippines) Research activities are related to investigations on physiology and biochemistry of diseases of fungal, bacterial and viral origin and of pathogens at the ICAR - National (Central) Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, India. Subsequently, with support from the Asian Rice Biotechnology Network Programme coordinated by the International Rice Research Institute, the Philippines and the Rockefeller Foundation expanded the studies on molecular plant pathology. The contributions from my laboratory include (i) increased understanding of the biochemical and physiological nature of plant defence against pathogen attack and growth regulation of tungro-affected rice plants, (ii) resulted in understanding bacterial blight and blast pathogen populations of Eastern India using molecular marker technology in combination with conventional phenotyping leading to identification of useful disease resistance (R) genes and their combinations, and (iii) early improvement (2004) of two of the most popular rice cultivars, Swarna and IR64 fortified with single or combinations of two to four bacterial blight R genes in different combinations using marker-assisted selection for the chosen R genes. Topic of the lecture Recognition and specificity: Gene-for-gene resistance and beyond

Dr. C. Manoharachary, India

Prof. C. Manoharachary has served Osmania University for 45 long years in different capacities including as Dean. He has served as Vice Chancellor of Oriental University, Indore. He has guided 50 students for Ph.d., published 640 research papers and 30 books including that of Springer Publications, USA. He has discovered 20 new fungal genera and 82 new fungal species. He has immensely contributed for the advancement of teaching and research in Mycology and Plant pathology besides establishing excellent infrastructure. He is recipient of Five National Awards including Dr. E. K. Janaki Ammal National Award by the Ministry of Environment and UGC J.C. Bose Award. Further, received five awards from state government including best teacher award and outstanding scientist award. he has been honoured with six lifetime achievement awards, served as president of IPS, IBS, MSI, ISCA Botany section and others. Served as chairman/expert member of UGC, DST, DBT, MOENF, ICAR, CSIR and others. He did his postdoctoral work in UK, USA, and Germany. He is also fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India, Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and others. Topic of the lecture Microbial diversity in India: challenges and issues

Dr. Laetitia Willocquet, France

Laetitia Willocquet is a plant disease epidemiologist working at INRA, France. She has worked in French and International Research Institutes, on a number of crops: rice diseases in tropical Asia; wheat, grapevine, strawberry, pea, and sunflower diseases in France; and bean and coffee diseases in Central America. She has worked on the analysis of the spatio-temporal development of epidemics, on the impact of plant diseases on crop yield, and on the use of quantitative resistance to manage plant diseases. These analyses involved experimental, statistical, and modelling approaches. Her current interest mainly focuses on wheat diseases, their variation over years and regions, and their impact on wheat production. Topic of the lecture Modelling yield losses from wheat rusts

Dr. Arnab Pain, Saudi Arabia

Arnab Pain is a Professor at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. He has joint appointments as a Distinguished Professor at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan and as a Visiting Professor of Genomics at the University of Oxford in UK. He obtained a B.Sc. (Ag) Hons. (B.C.K.V., West Bengal), a M.Sc. in Plant Pathology (IARI, New Delhi), and a Ph.D. in Microbiology (Cambridge University, UK). He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Oxford and a Senior Scientist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) in Cambridge before moving to KAUST. Prof. Pain’s expertise is on high-throughput sequencing and functional genomics of pathogens. Topic of the lecture Exploring the Genomic Landscapes of Rhizoctonia solani and Development of RsolaniDB - a Comprehensive Omic Resource for the Soilborne Basidiomycetous Phytopathogens

Dr. Neena Mitter, Australia

Prof Mitter is Director of the QAAFI Centre for Horticultural Science and the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformational Research HUB for Sustainable Crop Protection at The University of Queensland (UQ). Neena’s internationally groundbreaking innovations include 'BioClay for crop protection', 'Nanovaccines for animal health', and "Clonal propagation of avocado using plant stem cells". Neena participated in the Australian Government’s Decadal Plan for Agriculture, and has received the Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Award and Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering Fellowship. Neena is a National Leadership and Diversity Council member and has presented at internationally hosted Forums such as Nature conferences. Topic of the lecture Next generation pesticides and application

Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kogel, Germany

Institute for Phytopathology Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26 D-35392 Giessen Germany Topic of the lecture Plant protection by double-stranded RNAs, a novel biofungicide for sustainable crop protection: mechanisms and activities

Dr. D.B. Olufolaji, Nigeria

Professor, David Babatunde OLUFOLAJI; Is a lecturer/researcher – in Plant Pathology/Microbiology at The Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA). Ondo State. He started his working career at the Unilorin Sugar Research Institute, University of Ilorin and he became Crop specialist in Sugarcane Pathology. He obtained his B.Sc (Agric. Biology) and M.Phil (Plant pathology) at University of Ibadan Nigeria (1975 and 1985). PhD in plant Pathology/ Microbiology from University of Ilorin.Nigeria (1989). He has served Nigerian Society for Plant Protection (NSPP) in several positions as: i. Vice President 2005-2010, President, 2011-2016, Editor-in-Chief, 2006-2016, Chairman Board of Trustees of NSPP, 2018 to date. He has travelled to all the world six continents for conferences and research collaborations. He belongs to several national and international scientific societies, among which are international society for plant pathology. He is an international Editor of Indian Journal of Phytopathology. Topic of the lecture Plant protection by double-stranded RNAs, a novel biofungicide for sustainable crop protection: mechanisms and activities

Prof. M.S. Reddy, USA

Dr Reddy is a professor in the Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology, Auburn University, USA. For 15 years, Dr Reddy served as senior scientist and R & D global manager for several agro-chemical industries such as ExxonMobil (Esso – Imperial Oil), before switching to academia in 1998. Over 40 years he orchestrated multi-disciplinary, global research for biological control of soil-borne diseases (IPM), biofertilizers & biofungicides (PGPR), induced systemic resistance, and organic agriculture, for safer, environment-friendly products. Poverty alleviation for rural farmers was a key objective. Dr Reddy contributed over 350 peer-reviewed research papers and several book chapters. He worked with national and international research and development organizations funded by multi-million-dollar grants. In 2009, Dr Reddy founded the non-profit Asian PGPR Society for Sustainable Agriculture, registered in India and the USA, to enable scientists, researchers and others to share teaching, research, and commercialization. Dr Reddy has trained several M.Sc. and Ph. D. graduates, post-doctorates, and visiting national and international scientists. He received prestigious international awards for research and entrepreneurship. Successful Businessperson, Investor & Entrepreneur of www.auburnventures.com, Auburn, Alabama, USA. He consults for educational, private sector, government bodies and NGOs globally. Topic of the lecture Integrated nano-based microbiome and smart agriculture for plant health management

Dr. Dipankar Maiti, India

Director (I/C) ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, Odisha, India

Dr. Hesham Ali Metwally Ali El-Enshasy, Malaysia

Prof. Hesham Ali El Enshasy is the Director of Institute of Bioproduct Development (IBD), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), and the current co-Chair for Food, Pharmaceutical& Bio-Engineering Division, Division 15A (Food), American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE). Prof. El Enshasy received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Microbiology (Ain Shams University, Egypt), Dr. rer. Nat. Industrial Biotechnology (TU-Braunschweig, Germany), M.Sc. Technology Management (UTM, Malaysia). He has two technology patents and more than 250 publications in peer reviewed international journals, book chapters, and books. He was keynote, plenary, and guest speaker in more than 80 international conferences in field of industrial biotechnology. Topic of the lecture Platform Technology for Large Scale Production of Biological Control Agents for Fungal Oil Palm Diseases

Dr. S.C. Bhardwaj, India

Responsible for identifying Lr80 a new leaf rust resistance gene, 7th from India in the history of 74 years of designations. Sequenced the genome of three wheat rust pathogens, identified 55 new pathotypes of Puccinia on wheat, barley, developed 7 wheat varieties, pyramided and registered 56 rust resistant genetic stocks. In addition, he has vigorously pursued work on transcriptomics, MAS, DNA fingerprinting of rust pathotypes and host pathogen interaction at molecular level. The significant work done by him during the last 34 years has not only resulted in saving 5-10 million tonnes of wheat every year but also showed a way for successful control of wheat rusts through the intelligent use of resistance. Carrying on the legacy of stalwarts Drs. K.C. Mehta, R. Prasada and S. Nagarajan, he is heading wheat rust research in India successfully for the last 10 years. He is a fellow of 4 professional societies, NAAS fellow, recipient Gene stewardship award of Borlaug Global Rust Initiative and many other honours. Published more than 215 research papers, 86 of them are in high impact journals. Topic of the lecture Integration of resistance in wheat to counter fast evolving rusts

Dr. Pratibha Sharma, India

Topic of the lecture Plant clinic diagnosis worldwide and amateurs plant doctors versus phytiatry doctors

Dr. Prasun Mukherjee, India

Dr. R.N. Pandey, India

o Prof. (Dr.) Ram Narain Pandey has worked as Assistant Professor (1986 to 1991), Associate Professor (1991 to 1999), Professor, (1999 to Sept. 2007) at different institutions and Prof. & Head (2007 to 2018) at Department of Plant Pathology, B. A. College of Agriculture, AAU, Anand, Gujarat, India. o He has taught courses to PG and UG students; guided 15 M. Sc. and Ph. D. students; Published 45 research papers; 5 Books, 8 book chapters; 5 bulletins, 5 practical manuals, 10 reviews and 68 popular articles; Presented 67 research papers and invited lectures in conferences, seminars, symposia, workshops, summer/ Winter Schools, etc. o He was Principal Investigator of 28 projects sponsored by different agencies. o He established ‘state of art’ labs for “Molecular characterization of Plant Pathogens” and “Trichoderma Production”. o He conducted researches in detection of plant pathogens, pathogenic variability, genetics of host-parasite interaction, epidemiology, and Chemical and biological management of diseases; and recommended 28 technologies of disease management to the farmers. o Prof. Pandey is on the panel of Experts of SAUs, ICAR, other Institutions. o He has been HoD of GAU & AAU; Course Director of 2 Winter Schools, 2 short trainings; Organizing Secretary of 1 ICAR workshop, 4 of IPS and ISMPP Annual Conferences. o He has been President (2018) & Zonal President (2010) of IPS; Jt. Secretary of Assoc. of Agro-met; Councilor of ISMPP, ISPRD; Editors of IPS and ISMPP Journals; member of QRT, ICAR. o He has been awarded with Fellowship of “FPSI”of IPS,“ISPRD” Kanpur, “FSMP” of ISMPP, “Jeersanidhi Award”; Commendation Award; Best Paper awards; etc. by IPS, ISMPP. etc. Topic of the lecture Trichoderma spp. in the management of stresses in plants, their commercialization for sustainable agriculture and rural prosperity

Dr. Kalyan K. Mondal, India

Brief Biodata (in 100 words) Dr. Mondal has long working experience on bacterial diseases of rice w.r.t host-pathogen interactions. His group deciphered the function of bacterial effector proteins in modulating plant immunity. Dr. Mondal visited Stanford University, USA to have an insight into the biochemical role of bacterial T3SS effectors in pathogenesis. Besides, he visited China, Philippines, Vietnam Thailand for delivering invited talks in International conferences. • 191 including 53 research papers with citation no. 764, h index 15 and i10 index 24. • Fellow Indian Phytopathological Society (2013) • Member, The National Academy of Sciences India (2013) • Prof M J Narasimhan Academic (2001) & Prof M. K. Patel Memorial Young Scientist Award (2008) • Member, American Phytopathological Society • Life member of Societies-IPS, ISMPP, SARP. • Dr. Mondal served IPS in the capacity of Zonal Councillor (Delhi Zone-2013);Editor (2016 and 2020) and Associate editors (2004-2007 and 2011-2012). • Authored a very popular text book “Plant Bacteriology” published by Kalyani publishers. • Dr. Mondal is credited for fetching research grants from DBT (6), DST (1), NASF (1), ICAR (2). • He is honoured as guest reviewers to the scientific journals of international repute including Plant Disease, Frontiers of Microbiology, MPMI, Scientific Reports, Plant Pathology Topic of the lecture Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae-effectors vs rice immunity: Understanding and scope for bacterial blight management

Dr. Robert F. Park, Australia

Professor Robert Park completed a PhD in plant pathology at La Trobe University in 1984 and for the past 36 years has researched cereal rust diseases. In 1995, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt research award (Germany), and in 2010 a Fulbright Senior Scholarship (USA). He was also awarded the Friendship Award of China (2009), the NSW Science and Engineering Award for Excellence in Biological Sciences (2013), the Clarke Medal (2015) and Poggendorf Medal (2018) by the Royal Society of NSW, and in 2020 received the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Leadership in Innovation and Science. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (2015), the Royal Society of NSW (2019), and the Australasian Plant pathology Society (2019). Robert holds the Judith and David Coffey Chair of Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Sydney. He is Director of the Australian Cereal Rust Control Program, the world’s largest research group targeting genetic solutions to rust diseases of plants. He has worked extensively in international agriculture and has published two books, written 11 book chapters and more than 180 scholarly research papers. Topic of the lecture Host-pathogen interactions in the rust pathogens of wheat and barley

Dr. Rashmi Aggarwal, India

Topic of the lecture Advances in Genomics and diagnostics of fungal plant pathogens and their management

Dr. R. Selvarajan, India

He obtained his M.Sc (Agri) from TNAU and Ph.D from ICAR-IARI in 1994. He joined as Scientist in ICAR. Presently working as Principal Scientist at ICAR-NRCB. He developed cutting-edge indigenous diagnostic kits including dipsticks for on-site detection for banana viruses and certified 300 million TC banana plants under NCS-TCP system. He produced BBTV free ECS derived Hill banana plants and rejuvenated Virupakshi (GI 124). Developed transgenics banana plants resistant to BBTV. He successfully completed 15 projects. Served as FAO consultant in 2002. Recipient of Hari Ohm Ashram Trust Award and DST-Lockheed Martin IIGP Award in 2015 and Jeersannidhi Award from IPS. Organized six national & international trainings. He has 124 publications to his credit. He has been conferred on Fellowship from HSI, NABS, IPS, IVS and CHAI. He was one of the organizing secretaries organized VIROCON-2014, National symposium (IPS-South Zone 2018) and an International conference on banana 2020 at Tiruchirapalli. Topic of the lecture Recent developments in plant disease diagnostics using laboratory and artificial intelligence dependant IoT methods

Dr. Virendra Kumar Baranwal, India

Dr Baranwal has made significant contribution in molecular characterisation of viruses affecting important field and horticultural crops and application of modern diagnostic tools such as rolling circle amplification, multiplex PCR, isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification, microarray DNA chip and high throughput sequencing. His work on production of antibodies using recombinant coat protein has paved the way for indigenous development of ELISA kits for a large number of plant viruses. He has supervised a large number of post graduate and doctoral students and was bestowed with best teacher award of IARI. He is Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Topic of the lecture High throughput Sequencing as diagnostics of known and novel plant viruses/viroids and its application

Dr. S.C. Dubey, India

Significantly contributed in characterization, diversity analysis, DNA barcode, diagnostics, host-pathogen interaction and race profiling for fungal plant pathogens. Developed bio-agent based integrated management technologies for major diseases. Developed highly effective novel bio-formulations Pusa 5SD (got Indian Patent) from Trichoderma harzianum. Monitored quarantine processing of plant genetic resources including transgenic for research purposes and provided technical and policy inputs on phytosanitary issues related to Biosecurity and Quarantine to various stakeholders. Credited with release of 15 varieties of rice, chickpea, mungbean and garden pea resistant to diseases, registered resistant sources of chickpea, urdbean, cowpea and lentil. Deposited about 600 partial fungal gene sequences to NCBI GenBank. Recipient of Young Scientist Award, Dastur Memorial Lecture Award and Prof. K.P.V. Menon award, INSA fellowship and fellows of National Academy of Biological Sciences, Chennai; ISMPP, Udaipur and IPS, New Delhi. Editorial member and office bearer of various professional societies and journals. Associated with teaching and guided 21 students. Published 205 research papers, 138 papers presented in National/ International symposia, 31 book chapters, 43 chapters in practical manuals, 3 books authored, 9 books edited, 46 popular articles and 4 technical bulletins. Topic of the lecture Ensuring biosecurity through effective policy framework and stringent quarantine of plant genetic resources

Dr. Karen A. Garrett, USA

Karen A. Garrett is in the Plant Pathology Department, Food Systems Institute, and Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. Her work addresses epidemiology, systems analysis, and analyses for decision support, including machine learning approaches. Recent work includes analysis of strengths and vulnerabilities of crop seed systems, adaptation strategies for global change, and corresponding crop breeding networks. Other work addresses the translation of microbiome analyses for improved agricultural management. Garrett is on the editorial committee for Annual Review of Phytopathology, recent Senior Editor for Phytopathology, and an elected AAAS Fellow. More information is available at her lab website: garrettlab.com. Topic of the lecture Adaptation strategies for plant disease management under climate change

Dr. Ravi Khetarpal, Thailand

Topic of the lecture Asia Pacific Scenario on Plant Health and Food Security Challenges

Dr. Serge Savary, France

Topic of the lecture The State of Global Plant Health and the Consequences of Global Changes