Biographical note

Dr. Gausiya Bashri is Assistant Professor, Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. She obtained her D.Phil. degree in Botany from the Department of Botany, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India. The major area of her research includes plant growth regulators and abiotic stress tolerance mechanism in plants. She has worked on various plant physiological aspects like estimation of oxidative biomarkers, antioxidants, photosynthetic rate, chlorophyll a fluorescence and nitrogen metabolism in response to heavy metal, and other abiotic stresses. Dr. Bashri has published in international journals including Plos One, Journal of Plant Growth Regulation, Acta Physiologiae Plantarum, Plant Growth Regulation (Springer), Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (Elsevier) and Chemistry and Ecology (Taylor and Francis), as well as being a regular reviewer of the same. She has also published chapters in edited books. Dr. Shamsul Hayat is Professor, in the Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. He has also worked as Associate Professor in King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as a BOYSCAST Fellow at National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan and as visiting scientist through INSA-Bilateral exchange programme at Faculty of Biology and Chemistry, Institute of Biology, Department of Plant Biochemistry and Toxicology, University of Bialystok, Poland. The major area of research includes plant hormone, nanoscience and abiotic stress in plants. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, and has published more than 160 research papers in leading journals, as well as publishing several books. He is a regular reviewer and editorial boards of National and International journals, Dr. Hayat is also the member of important National and International scientific societies. Recently he has been appointed as Indian representative in Asia Association of Plant Scientist. Dr. Andrzej Bajguz is Professor in University of Bialystok, Poland. He is a member of the Polish Biochemical Society, the Polish Society of Experimental Plant Biology, and the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology. He serves on the editorial boards of 'Planta', 'Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae', 'Journal of Plant Growth Regulation', and ‘Plants’. He is a reviewer for international journals on plant biology, e.g., ‘Physiologia Plantarum’, ‘Phytochemistry’, 'Planta', 'Plant Physiology and Biochemistry', and 'International Journal of Molecular Sciences'. He was an editor of special issues in 'Journal of Plant Growth Regulation', 'International Journal of Molecular Sciences', and ‘Plants’. Fields of his scientific interest are phytohormones, especially brassinosteroids– their physiology and biochemistry in lower plants. For the past 25 years his dominant research area has been hormonal growth and development regulation of the plants, mainly through, auxins, cytokinins, and brassinosteroids in mitigating the stress of the heavy metal action.