Biographical note

Khursheed Hussain, has been serving as Assistant Professor at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Sciences & Technology in India for 13 years. He served as Scientific Officer to Vice Chancellor from 2015-2020. He has published more than 120 research articles, 25 review articles and many books. His contribution in the field of research is in varietal and hybrid development as Principal/Co-breeder of 7 vegetable varieties with other varieties in the pipeline. He has been an advisor of more than 50 PG students and has been invited to give many lectures and trainings. Sameena Maqbool Lone is a PhD scholar in the Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, India. She holds a Master's degree in Horticulture from SKUAST-K, Shalimar. At the Master's level, she worked on "Heterosis and Combining Ability Studies in Cherry Tomato" and obtained competence in morphological and molecular characterization, as well as numerous plant tissue culture technologies. In her Phd programme, she is working on the “Morpho-Molecular Characterization and Nutraceutical Profiling of different carrot genotypes (Daucus carota L.)”. She has outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, for which she received a merit scholarship from SKUAST-K during her Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes. She has contributed to over 23 academic papers, 6 books, and more than 100 new gene sequences in Genbank by 2022. Dr. Khalid Zaffar Masoodi is a young scientist who works as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Plant Biotechnology at the Sher-e Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology in Kashmir (India). He holds a Master's degree in Biotechnology and a doctorate in Plant Biotechnology. Dr. Masoodi is the recipient of numerous awards, including the SERB Early Career Research Award 2016, the SBUR Travel Award in the United States of America in 2012, and the Society of Endocrinology Journal Award in 2018 at Glasgow United Kingdoms. Dr. Masoodi has a distinguished academic record, having qualified for the CSIR-UGC net in Life Sciences, the DBT-BET JRF, and the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering and Sciences (GATE) while doing his Masters in Biotechnology. Dr. Masoodi has filed Six patent applications in last 2 years, has over 12 years of teaching and research experience, and has published numerous scientific articles in the fields of cancer research, human disease research, and biotechnology research. His laboratory (Transcriptomics Laboratory, often known as K-Lab, after the Klenow fragment) at SKUAST-K is fully equipped with fluorescence imaging, real-time PCR, cell culture, and Western blotting including other state-of-the-art equipment. His research interests span multiple dimensions, including transcriptomics of plant stress biology (biotic/abiotic) and cancer biology. Apart from that, he is extensively involved in the research of new drugs from medicinal plants. Additionally, he is a co-author of Advanced Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Methods (Academic Press, 2020). Dr. Syed Minu Balkhi holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Kashmir, India. She qualified for the JRF-NET CSIR and obtained a fellowship during her PhD program in 2013. She is currently a Lecturer at Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Humhama, India. Prior to this she was a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Department of Immunology, University of Pittsburgh, USA. She has contributed to various publications.