Metabolic Adaptations in Plants During Abiotic Stress

Metabolic Adaptations in Plants during Abiotic Stress covers a topic of past, present and future interest for both scientists and policy makers as the global challenge of climate change is addressed. Understanding the mechanisms of plant adaptation to environmental stresses can provide the necessary tools needed to take action to protect them, and hence ourselves. This book brings together recent findings about metabolic adaptations during abiotic stress and in diverse areas of plant adaptation. It covers not only the published results, but also introduces new concepts and findings to offer original views on the perspectives and challenges in this field.

Ramakrishna Akula is currently

a scientist at Monsanto

Breeding Station, Bangalore,

India. Dr. Ramakrishna holds

a master's degree from Sri

Krishna Devaraya University,

Anantapur, India. He started

his research career in 2005

at the Department of Plant

Cell Biotechnology, CFTRI,

Mysuru, in the research group

of Dr. G.A. Ravishankar. He

is a Senior Research Fellow of

CSIR, New Delhi. He obtained

his Ph.D. in biochemistry from University of Mysore, Mysuru,

in the area of development of high frequency somatic embryogenesis

and regulation of secondary metabolites in Coffea

canephora. He worked extensively on the role of serotonin,

melatonin, and calcium-mediated signaling in plants. He has

made significant contributions to metabolic engineering of secondary

metabolites from plants and abiotic stress in plants. He

has worked in the area of tissue culture, in vitro production, and

regulation of plant secondary metabolites from food value plants

that include natural pigment caffeine, steviosides, anthocyanins,

and carotenoids. He is the author of three books, 12 peerreviewed

publications, two reviews, and eight chapters in books.

His books include Serotonin and Melatonin: Their Functional

Role in Plants, Food, Phytomedicine, and Human Health,

Metabolic Adaptations in Plants During Abiotic Stress (CRC

Press, 2016) and Neurotransmitters in Plants: Perspectives and

Applications (CRC Press, 2018). He is a member of the Society

for Biotechnologists (India). He is a fellow of the Society for

Applied Biotechnology, India (2012), and has received the Global

Vegetable Research Excellence Award (2017), three global technology

recognition awards, a Rapid Recognition Award, Test

Master, Asia Veg R&D quarterly recognitions, and special recognition

from the Monsanto company. He attended the Fifth

International Symposium on Plant Neurobiology held in 2009

in Florence, Italy. He also attended the Technical Community of

Monsanto (TCM) held in 2016, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Sarvajeet Singh Gill is

currently working as assistant

professor at the Centre

for Biotechnology, Maharshi

Dayanand University, Rohtak,

Haryana, India. In 2001, Dr.

Gill completed an MSc in

botany from Aligarh Muslim

University, Aligarh, INDAI,

with a Gold Medal. Soon after,

Dr. Gill started his research

career (M.Phil. and PhD, 2001·

2008) in plant stress physiology and molecular biology at AMU.

Dr. Gill has made significant contributions towards abiotic stress

tolerance in crop plants. Dr. Gill’s research includes abiotic

stress tolerance in crop plants, reactive oxygen species signaling

and antioxidant machinery, gene expression, helicases, crop

improvement, transgenics, nitrogen and sulfur metabolism, and

plant fungal symbiotic interactions. Together with Dr. Narendra

Tuteja at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and

Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, he worked on plant helicases

for abiotic stress tolerance. He further explored the mechanism

of stress tolerance by PDH45 in tobacco and rice (Plant Mol

Biol 82(1·2):1·22, 2013, and PLoS One 9(5):e98287, 2014). Dr.

Gill discovered a novel function of plant MCM6 in salinity stress

tolerance that will help to improve crop production at sub-optimal

conditions (Plant Mol Biol 76(2011):19·34, 2014). Herbicide

and salinity stress tolerance (PDH45 + EPSPS) in plants has

also been explored by Dr. Gill (Front. Plant Sci. 8:364, 2017).

He helped to develop salinity-tolerant tobacco and rice plants,

without affecting the overall yield. This research uncovers new

pathways to plant abiotic stress tolerance and indicates the potential

for improving crop production at sub-optimal conditions. A

recipient of the INDIA Research Excellence & Citation Award

2017 from Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science), Sarvajeet Gill

has edited several books with Springer, Wiley, Elsevier, CABI,

and others, and has a number of research papers, review articles,

and book chapters to his name.