Biographical note

Dr. Manzer H. Siddiqui is Associate Professor, Department of Botany & Microbiology, King Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He received B.Sc. (1997), M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) degrees in Botany from the Aligarh Muslim University. Dr. Siddiqui then joined as a Young Scientist (DST) in the AMU. He has received awards, fellowships and research grants including the National Plan for Sciences and Technology (NPST). His research focuses on crop production with special emphasis on the management strategies of different fertilizers and plant growth regulators under different environmental conditions. His laboratory focuses on the emerging field of plant physiology and nanotechnology. His research aims explores the beneficial role of nanoparticles in plant growth and metabolism under abiotic stress. Dr. M. Nasir Khan did his Ph.D. in Botany with the specialization in Plant Physiology from the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. After completing his Ph.D. he was awarded research associate from council of scientific and industrial research (CSIR), New Delhi, India and environmentalist of the year award (2011) from the national environmental science academy (NESA), India. Dr. Khan is currently Associate Professor at the University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. His research is focused on the mechanism of abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. Dr. Khan has published in international journals of international repute and has been served as guest editor of special issues of multiple international journals. Dr. Soumya Mukherjee is a faculty member in the Department of Botany, Jangipur College, University of Kalyani, West Bengal, India. He has worked as a CSIR- research fellow in the area of abiotic stress physiology of plants, and has published in SCOPUS and SCI indexed international journals. He has authored chapters on plant physiology and abiotic stress signaling, and authored an e-learning module in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry published as an effort of National Mission on Education through ICT. He has developed course content for Master of Science in Botany (distance education) for the subjects of Plant physiology from Lalit Narayan Mithila University and Alagappa University, and is currently focused on undergraduate teaching to Botany (Hons.) and Life Science students in fundamental aspects areas of Plant Physiology. His research interests are in salt-stress physiology associated with the aspects of hormone signaling, soil-root interaction and other biomolecular crosstalk in plants.