Parani Madasamy

Department of Genetic Engineering, College of Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, TN, India

Dr. Parani Madasamy is a genomics and genetic engineering expert working in the Department of Genetic Engineering, College of Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRM IST), Chennai, India. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Kansas State University, USA, and an Adjunct Associate Faculty at West Virginia State University, USA. He received his PhD in biotechnology from Anna University, Chennai, India, in 1999. She then served as a scientist at the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in India and as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA. He moved to SRM IST in 2006. He is the Group Leader in Genomics at the SRM-DBT Partnership Platform for Advanced Life Science Technologies. He was involved in the GenomeAsia100K project (Nature 576:106–111), which is aimed at deep sequencing of 100,000 individuals from diverse populations of Asia. He also completely sequenced the genome of an important mangrove species, Avicennia marina. He is a leading researcher working on DNA barcoding and its applications in Indian herbal product authentication. 

Purushothaman Natarajan

University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, Maryland, USA

Dr. Natarajan is an Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics in the Department of Agriculture, Food, and Resource Sciences at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess Anne, MD. With a Ph.D. in genomic data analysis and bioinformatics applications within plant sciences, Dr. Natarajan has published over 50 research articles. The expertise encompasses high-throughput genomic technologies and bioinformatics strategies, including Illumina, PacBio, Nanopore, Bionano, Hi-C, Iso-Seq, RNA-Seq, GWAS, whole-genome re-sequencing, and T2T assembly in crops. Dr. Natarajan has developed reference-grade, chromosome-scale whole-genome assemblies for species such as mangroves, pomegranate, and rice and has contributed to international collaborations like the GenomeAsia100K project. Research includes studying polyploidy's impact on gene expression, conducting RNA-Seq and GWAS in vegetable crops, and developing genotyping assays using GWAS and BSA-Seq to identify genetic markers controlling important traits in crops. Additionally, pioneering machine learning in phenotyping and gene expression studies, Dr. Natarajan has established a core genomics facility and supercomputing infrastructure, mentoring over 40 researchers in genomics and bioinformatics. The work has been supported by substantial USDA and NSF funding, enhancing crop resilience and productivity through cutting-edge genomic research and bioinformatics tools. 

Latha Rangan

Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, India

Dr. Rangan is a plant biologist specializing in molecular biology and genome mining, in the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, and in Bioresources application in the School of Agro and Rural Technology (SART), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, Assam. Dr. Rangan received her PhD in Plant Science from the University of Madras and carried out her research at the Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory (PMBL), International Rice Research Institute Philippines (Manila) in 2001. She then joined for her Post Doctoral Fellowship at Norman Borlaug Institute for Crop Science Research, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom in 2004 before she moved to India. Dr Rangan Joined IITG in 2004 as Assistant Professor before becoming Professor in same institution in 2014. Main focus of the research has been in the areas of Applied Biodiversity using an integrative approach that has helped in tapping bio-resources from wilderness to mining 'omics'. Of particular interest are the members of the family Zingeberaceae and certain non-edible oil plants occurring in North East India and in particular Assam. The work has laid foundation for new ways to detect, authenticate, protect and use biodiversity.