Dr. Adhikari is a principal research scholar and plant pathologist at the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. His research interests include exploring population biology, genetic mapping, and plant-pathogen interactions, as well as developing molecular tools for pathogen detection. His work also focuses on improving management practices to enhance plant health and mitigate bacterial and fungal diseases in tomatoes and strawberries.
Dr. Suresh Gawande is a Principal Scientist at ICAR-Directorate of Onion and Garlic Research, Pune, India. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India in the discipline of Plant Pathology. His areas of interest are genomics of biotic and abiotic stress, host-pathogen-vector interaction of tospoviruses, microbial metagenomics, plant-pathogen diagnostics, mechanism of genetic and induced host plant resistance. Currently, he is working on biotechnological approaches for biotic stress management.
Dr. Marcello Iriti is an Associate Professor of Plant Biology and Pathology within the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan.
He has been studying nutraceuticals, functional foods, phytotherapeutics and essential oils relevant for human and animal health, focusing on their preclinical (in vitro/in vivo) and in human pharmacological activities. He has also been investigating the health-promoting effects of traditional Mediterranean diet as well as the ethnopharmacology of herbal remedies of traditional healing systems.
Dr. Iriti is a Member of the World Academy of Sciences, Asian Council of Science Editors and Society of African Journal Editors. Founding Member of the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine. Member of the Working Group ‘Pharmacognosy, Phytotherapy and Nutraceuticals’ of the Italian Pharmacological Society.
Sushma Naithani is an Associate Professor Senior Research in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University, USA. The current focus of her research is on understanding information flow in living systems and how evolution shapes this flow using systems-level pathway modeling supported by high-quality biocuration, gene-orthology-based predictions, and analysis of omics data. She serves as a senior curator for the Plant Reactome knowledgebase. Sushma has authored 31 peer-reviewed refereed research articles in high-impact journals, including Nature, Nature Biotech, PNAS, etc. One of her research papers has been selected by the 'Faculty of 1000 Biology'. In addition, she has authored six book chapters and one Open Textbook (S. Naithani (2021): History and Science of Cultivated Plants published by Oregon State University Open Educational Resources, EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-955101-08-0, available at https://open.oregonstate.education/cultivatedplants). She is also an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science-Plant Biotechnology and served as the Editor-in-chief of the Current Plant Biology (2017-2023).
Experienced Research Scientist with a demonstrated history of working with the Canadian Forest Service. Skilled in Forest Pathology, Forest Indigenous & Invasive Alien Pathogens, Sequence Analysis, Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), Epidemiology, and Molecular Ecology. Strong research professional with a M.Sc. & Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees focused in Forest Pathology, Biotechnology & Forest Pest Management from N.C. State University & University of Arkansas, USA, respectively.