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Ratna Prabha is a SERB-National Postdoctoral Fellow (DST, Govt. of India) at
Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanda Technical University, Bhilai. She obtained her master’s degree in Bioinformatics from Banasthali Vidyapeeth and her Ph.D. in
Biotechnology from Mewar University, India. She has been engaged in developing
various digital databases on plants and microbes and has published two edited
books, many book chapters, and various research papers and review articles in journals of international repute. Her current research interest lies in microbe-mediated
stress management in plants, database development, comparative microbial genome
analysis, phylogenomics and pangenome analysis of prokaryotic genomes, and
metagenomics data analysis. She has completed several bioinformatics demonstration tasks at different national training programs on bioinformatics and computational biology. She has been awarded the Young Scientist Award at G.B. Pant
University of Agriculture and Technology; S&T SIRI, Telangana; and CGCOST,
Chhattisgarh.
Rajan Chaurasia is a Research Fellow (CSIR-NET-JRF) at the Institute of
Environmental and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University. His
research interests are crop diversification, emerging cropping patterns, plant–
microbe interactions, microbial diversity, and sustainable agriculture. He has
received the Young Scientist Travel Award from the International Union of Biological
Sciences (IUBS), Paris. He is a life member of the Association of Environmental
Analytical Chemistry of India (AEACI), the Society for Science of Climate Change
and Environmental Sustainability and an active member of the Global Land
Programme (GLP), Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI), and the Commission
on Ecosystem Management of IUCN.
Dhananjaya Pratap Singh is a Principal Scientist in biotechnology at ICARNational Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms (NBAIM), Maunath
Bhanjan, India. He obtained his master’s degree from G.B. Pant University of
Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, and his Ph.D. in Biotechnology from
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. His research interests include plant–microbe
interactions, bio-prospecting of metabolites of microbial and plant origin, microbemediated stress management in plants, metabolomics-driven search for small molecules, and bioinformatics in microbial research. He was involved in the development
of a supercomputational facility for agricultural bioinformatics in the microbial
domain at ICAR-NBAIM under the National Agricultural Bioinformatics Grid
(NABG) program of ICAR. He has been awarded with various prestigious awards
including the Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Award for Scientific Excellence in 2016 by
Marina Labs. He has more than 134 publications and one Indian patent to his credit.
Ch. Srinivasa Rao is the Director of the ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural
Research & Management (NAARM), Hyderabad. He received his M.Sc. (Ag) from
ANGRAU, Bapatla, AP, his Ph.D. from IARI, New Delhi, and did Post-Doctoral
research at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. His specializations are soil carbon sequestration, climate change, agriculture contingency planning, conservation policy, and
About the Authors
Ratna Prabha is a SERB-National Postdoctoral Fellow (DST, Govt. of India) at
Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanda Technical University, Bhilai. She obtained her master’s degree in Bioinformatics from Banasthali Vidyapeeth and her Ph.D. in
Biotechnology from Mewar University, India. She has been engaged in developing
various digital databases on plants and microbes and has published two edited
books, many book chapters, and various research papers and review articles in journals of international repute. Her current research interest lies in microbe-mediated
stress management in plants, database development, comparative microbial genome
analysis, phylogenomics and pangenome analysis of prokaryotic genomes, and
metagenomics data analysis. She has completed several bioinformatics demonstration tasks at different national training programs on bioinformatics and computational biology. She has been awarded the Young Scientist Award at G.B. Pant
University of Agriculture and Technology; S&T SIRI, Telangana; and CGCOST,
Chhattisgarh.
Rajan Chaurasia is a Research Fellow (CSIR-NET-JRF) at the Institute of
Environmental and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University. His
research interests are crop diversification, emerging cropping patterns, plant–
microbe interactions, microbial diversity, and sustainable agriculture. He has
received the Young Scientist Travel Award from the International Union of Biological
Sciences (IUBS), Paris. He is a life member of the Association of Environmental
Analytical Chemistry of India (AEACI), the Society for Science of Climate Change
and Environmental Sustainability and an active member of the Global Land
Programme (GLP), Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI), and the Commission
on Ecosystem Management of IUCN.
Dhananjaya Pratap Singh is a Principal Scientist in biotechnology at ICARNational Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms (NBAIM), Maunath
Bhanjan, India. He obtained his master’s degree from G.B. Pant University of
Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, and his Ph.D. in Biotechnology from
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. His research interests include plant–microbe
interactions, bio-prospecting of metabolites of microbial and plant origin, microbemediated stress management in plants, metabolomics-driven search for small molecules, and bioinformatics in microbial research. He was involved in the development
of a supercomputational facility for agricultural bioinformatics in the microbial
domain at ICAR-NBAIM under the National Agricultural Bioinformatics Grid
(NABG) program of ICAR. He has been awarded with various prestigious awards
including the Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Award for Scientific Excellence in 2016 by
Marina Labs. He has more than 134 publications and one Indian patent to his credit.
Ch. Srinivasa Rao is the Director of the ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural
Research & Management (NAARM), Hyderabad. He received his M.Sc. (Ag) from
ANGRAU, Bapatla, AP, his Ph.D. from IARI, New Delhi, and did Post-Doctoral
research at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. His specializations are soil carbon sequestration, climate change, agriculture contingency planning, conservation policy, and
About the Authors