Education

 2015 PhD-Biological Sciences - Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), CSIR-CSMCRI (Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute) Gujarat, India

Research/Thesis - “Study of biochemical and molecular parameters in a halophyte Aeluropus lagopoides in response to salt stress"

2006  M.Sc.-Biotechnology-Department of Biotechnology, M.L.S. University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

       

Appointments

2024 - Present       Program Associate:  Dept. of Entomology and Plant Pathology,

                                                                   University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 72701, USA

2021 - 2024            Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Dept. of Entomology and Plant Pathology,

                                                                                   University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 72701, USA

 

2015 -2020             Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Plant Protection Institute, ARO Volcani Center, Israel

 

Research Expertise/ Technical skills

Nematodes:

A: Plant pathogenic nematodes-

(a) Root Knot Nematode: In-vivo culture of Root knot nematode (RKN) (Meloidogyne) in tomato plants, Extraction of M. javanica eggs with sucrose gradient method, Sterilization of RKN eggs and J2 juveniles using HgCl2. Dissection and identification of different larval stages of RKN from roots. Studying the function of genes in transgenic Arabidopsis plants and tomato roots by observing the response of transgenic lines towards RKN infection.

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(b) Cyst Nematode: In-vivo culture of Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) (Heterodera glycines) in soybean plants. Extraction of SCN cysts and eggs. Setting up the greenhouse bioassays with SCN to measure the disease resistance in soybean plants in response to different treatments. In-vivo culture of Beet Cyst nematode (BCN) (Heterodera schachtii) in sugarbeet plants.

 

(c) Caenorhabditis elegans- Culture, synchronization, preservation, and maintenance of C. elegans mutant strains, Toxicity testing of bionematicidal compounds using C. elegans (Counting and microscopy methods).

(d) Reniform Nematode- In-vivo culture of Reniform nematode in soybean plants. Performed the greenhouse bioassays to measure the disease resistance in different soybean breeding lines.

​C: Extraction of genomic DNA from different nematodes for their identification by PCR.

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D:  Nematode Extraction from soil sample and plant roots. Identification of 26 important plant parasitic nematode genera based on morphological and anatomical differences using microscopic image analysis. 

 

Model Organisms-: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherishia coli, Agrobacterium sp., Bacillus subtilis.  Plants: Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco), Lycopersicon esculentum (tomato), Glycine max (soybean), Nematodes: Caenorhabditis elegans, Meloidogyne javanica, Meloidogyne incognita, Heterodera glycines (soybean cyst nematode), Heterodera schachtii (Beet cyst nematode).

 

Molecular biology skills- DNA and RNA extraction and electrophoresis, Cloning & recombinant DNA methods, Vector Construction, Overlap PCR, Gateway cloning, DNA sequencing and analysis, PCR and qPCR, 5’ and 3’ RACE, Protein extraction and SDS PAGE, gel mobility shift assay (GMSA), transactivation assay, transformation in bacteria and yeast, Yeast-One-Hybrid, Yeast-Two-Hybrid, Promoter isolation by genome walking and deletion construction, plant tissue culture methods, Western Blotting.

 

Transgenics development and analysis: Development of transgenic plants in Arabidopsis thaliana by Agrobacterium mediated floral dip transformation method. Development of transgenic plants of Nicotiana tabacum by Agrobacterium mediated transformation. Molecular characterization, transgene copy number estimation and analysis of transgene expression levels. Segregation analysis of T2 and T3 generation transgenic plants to obtain homozygous plants. Development of transgenic hairy roots by Agrobacterium rhizogenes mediated transformation of tomato cotyledons, to study the spatial and temporal expression of genes involved in biotic stress responses. Transient gene expression in Nicotiana benthamia by agroinfiltration.

 

Agronomic, physiological and yield traits: Agronomic traits: plant height, days to maturity, number of branches, nod number in main stem, average leaf length, and average leaf width, Physiological traits: Chlorophyll content, Photosynthesis measurements (MultispeQ) etc., Yield traits: pods per plant, seed weight per plant, number of seeds per plant and 100 seeds weight.

 

Microbiology- Isolation and maintenance of bacterial and yeast cultures, streaking and serial dilution methods, biochemical characterization of bacteria, 16s rRNA gene sequencing, FAMES (MIDI), antibiotic assays.

 

Biochemical analysis in plants- Total soluble sugars, Proline, Total amino acids, ROS content, Ion content analysis, ROS localization, MDA, superoxide and hydrogen peroxide content.

 

Bioinformatics programs- Gene: GSDS, OligoCalc, Promoter: PLANTCARE, PLANTPAN and PLACE, Protein:  Expasy,  Prosite,  SMART  tool,  Interproscan,  Predict  Protein,  MEME,  Phyre2, SWISS-Plot, Bioedit, Multiple alignment analysis: Clustal Omega, T-Coffee, Mafft, Phylogenetic analysis:   MEGA, PHYLIP, itol, phylogeny.fr. Sequence databases: NCBI, EMBL, RDP, ARB, Solgenes,  Wormbase, Soybase, Tair, Phytozome. Metagenomic analysis:  Bellerophon tool, DNAstar, Mothur, UNIFRAC, Biostatistics softwares: Origin, JMP, Image analysis softwares: Rhizovision, ImageJ.

 

Tools and Techniques- Light microscopy, Stereomicroscope, Scanning electron microscopy, Fluorescence and Confocal Microscopy, ICP analysis, Real time PCR.

 

Arabidopsis- Handling and maintaining Arabidopsis plants, Agrobacterium mediated Arabidopsis floral dip transformation, Elucidation of functional role of oxylipin biosynthesis pathway genes in nematode resistance using Arabidopsis as model plant.