Autor: A. K. Tiwari

Dr. Sangeeta Saxena was born on March 15, 1968 in Dehradoon, a city in the foothills of Himalayas, India. She did her B.Sc. (Botany Hons ), M.Sc. (Microbiology), M.Phil (Biotechnology) and Ph.D. from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Her Ph.D. was carried out at Plant Virology Lab, National Botanical Research Institute, (CSIR) Lucknow, after being awarded CSIR-UGC JRF NET fellowship from Govt. of India. She obtained her Ph.D. degree entitled “Development of diagnostics against some important papaya viruses” in 1998. Her Ph.D. work led to first time identification of the causal organism causing leaf curl disease in India to be a begomovirus. Further she was awarded Post Doctoral Fellowship from Swedish Council for Scientific Research and Natural Sciences ( NFR)  and worked at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umea S- 901 83, Sweden during Dec. 1998 – Dec. 2000. She was awarded DST Young Scientist under SERB Fast Track Proposal for Young Scientists scheme from Dept. of Science & Technology, Government of India (from 2002- 2005). She joined Department of Biotechnology Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A Central University) Lucknow India in 2005 and is currently working there as an Associate Professor. Her area of research is Molecular Virology, RNAi in general and begomoviruses causing papaya leaf curl disease in particular. She has carried out four independent research projects in the area of plant virology, diagnostics and RNAi from various funding agencies like CST-UP, UGC, DBT and DST, Govt. of India. She has published more than 40 research and review articles in national and international journals and has authored four book chapters in edited books. Dr. Saxena is widely travelled and has visited countries Sweden, USA, France, Finland and China to attend several workshops and conferences. Currently,  Dr. Saxena is studying various aspects related to intra and interkingdom gene regulation by plant mi RNAs apart from her main research interest to develop virus resistant plants against begomoviruses. Dr Ajay K Tiwari is working as a Scientific Officer at UP Council of Sugarcane Research, Shahjahnapur, UP, India. He did his Ph D in 2011 on Cucurbit viruses in the Biotechnology department of CCS University, Meerut, UP, India. Dr. Tiwari is a regular member of the British Society of Plant Pathology, Indian Phytopathological Society, Sugarcane Technologists Association of India, International Society of Sugarcane Technologists, Society of Sugarcane Research and Promotion, Prof H S Srivastava foundation, and Society of Plant Research. He has published 70 research articles and 12 review articles in national and international journals. He has also published 6 book chapters in edited books and has also authored 7 edited books. He has submitted more than 150 nucleotide sequences of plant pathogens in Genbank to his credit. He is a regular reviewer and member of the editorial board for many international journals. He has been awarded the Young Researcher award in Italy 2011, the Young Scientist award by DST-SERB and was nominated for the Narshiman Award by the Indian Phytopathological Society. Very recently he was awarded the Young Scientist Award by the Chief Minister of the State Government of UP for his outstanding contribution in the area of plant pathology. Dr Tiwari is the recipient of many international travel awards given by DST, DBT, CSIR from India, PATHOLUX from Luxembourg and IOM from Brazil. He has visited China, Italy, Germany, Thailand for conferences and workshops. He has been involved in research on molecular characterization and management of agricultural plant pathogens for the last 9 years. Currently he is working on molecular characterization of sugarcane phytoplasma and their secondary spread in nature.