Advisory Board and Editors Plant Science
Janendra De Costa
Janendra De Costa is the Senior Professor and Chair of Crop Science at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. In his research, Prof. De Costa explores the interactions between plants and their environment. In particular, he is interested in unravelling the influence of climate on the functioning (i.e. physiology) of plants, their growth and productivity. His research has spanned across a range of agricultural crops in agro-ecosystems and natural plant species in forest ecosystems, with a special focus on climate change and its impacts on agricultural crops and tropical rainforests, their climate and soils. Prof. De Costa’s research has been predominantly empirical, strongly based on quantitative observations in the field and data analysis to build relationships, with a limited amount of simulation modelling and molecular biology.
As part of his interactions with the wider scientific community at the national level, Prof. De Costa takes an interest in policy formulation and funding for scientific research and development. He has served in national level research funding agencies, policy formulating bodies, editorial boards, governing boards and research monitoring and evaluation committees of national agencies. Currently, he functions as the Chairperson of the Consultative Committee for Research of the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka and is a member of the governing board of the Sugarcane Research Institute of Sri Lanka. As part of his social responsibility as a scientist, Prof. De Costa writes regularly to national newspapers on topical issues with a view to increasing scientific literacy and awareness among the general public.
Natasha de Vere
Head of Conservation and Research at the National Botanic Garden of Wales and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University.
Elizabeth S. Dennis
CSIRO Fellow. Distinguished professor, University of technology, Sydney, Past Chairman of the Multinational Arabidopsis Genome Project. Past President of the Australian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, winner Prime Minister's prize for Science.
Lucía DeSoto
Lecturer in Botany at Complutense University of Madrid
Nathalie Diagne
Dr. Nathalie Diagne is a Researcher at the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research in Senegal.
Her primary expertise includes, Plant Biotechnology, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Agriculture, and Plant Biology.
Douglas S Domingues
I am an Assistant Professor in Plant Molecular Genetics at the "Luiz de Queiroz" College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, Brazil. My main interests are devoted to understanding gene and genome evolution in plants, working on genome-wide analyses, including transcriptional analyses of gene families relevant to plant metabolism, RNA-seq analyses in plants, as well as studies on non-coding RNAs and transposable elements.
Tushar K. Dutta
I am a Senior Scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, involved in pursuing basic and applied research in the field of Nematology and Entomology.
As an alternative to Bt Cry toxins for insect pest management, a number of novel bacterial protein toxins (Txp40, TcaB) derived from an insect-parasitic bacterium Photorhabdus akhurstii (symbiont of nematode Heterorhabditis indica) were characterized. The mode of action and pathogenesis process of these toxins were investigated in different lepidopteran insects including Galleria mellonella, Helicoverpa armigera, Spodoptera litura and S. exigua. The potential receptor proteins and their binding sites for these toxins were unravelled from the insect midgut epithelial cells.
My other research interests include molecular basis of plant-nematode interaction. Using RNAi, functional analysis of several plant parasitism processes was deciphered including the role of Mi-cpl-1 in metabolic process, FLP and NLP neuropeptides in neuromusculation process, ODR and TAX proteins in chemotaxis process, cell wall degrading enzymes and various MSP effectors in infection process of plant nematodes. I have contributed in understanding the genetic basis of nematode resistance in rice via genome-wide association mapping coupled with omics-driven strategies. I am currently pursuing genome editing research for developing nematode resistance by adopting CRISPR-Cas9 strategy in Arabidopsis, rice and tomato.
Luis E Eguiarte
Professor of the Evolutionary Ecology Department at the Institute of Ecology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Alf Ekblad
I have a PhD in plant physiology at Umeå University, Sweden, a docent in soil ecology at SLU and I am currently a professor in biology for ecosystem ecology at Örebro University Sweden.
Mohamed A. El-Esawi
Dr. Mohamed A. El-Esawi is Professor at Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Egypt. Dr. El-Esawi received his BSc and MSc from Tanta University, and his Ph.D. degree from Dublin Institute of Technology, Technological University Dublin, Ireland. After obtaining his Ph.D., Dr. El-Esawi joined the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, University of Sorbonne in France, University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium and University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom as a visiting research fellow. His research focuses on genetics, molecular biology, environmental health and safety, environmental stress, biotechnology, molecular physiology, developmental biology, and bioinformatics. He has authored more than 150 international peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, books, and patents, and has participated in more than 70 conferences and workshops worldwide. Dr. El-Esawi has received several grants and international awards and recognition, including the Plants 2021 Young Investigator Award (MDPI, Switzerland). He has been ranked among the world's top 2% Scientists by Stanford University in USA, and is currently involved in several research projects.
Jurgen Engelberth
Dr. Jurgen Engelberth has a Ph.D. in plant physiology from the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. After working at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and at USDA, ARS, CMAVE in Gainesville, FL, he joined the biology faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He is currently an Associate Professor for plant biochemistry. He is an Associate Editor for Plant Signaling and Behavior and Plants. His work is focussed on plant-plant interactions by volatiles signals in response to biotic and abiotic stresses.
Ana E Escalante
Dr. Ana E. Escalante, a PhD in microbial ecology and evolution, has extensively studied microbial diversity and evolution in natural and engineered ecosystems. Since 2011, she has been at the National Laboratory of Sustainability Sciences (LANCIS), focusing on sustainability, particularly its implications for public policy and ecosystem management. With >50 scientific articles, numerous supervised theses, and teaching roles in multiple graduate programs. Since 2020 she serves as director of the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).