Advisory Board and Editors Plant Science

Journal Factsheet
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I told my colleagues that PeerJ is a journal where they need to publish if they want their paper to be published quickly and with the strict peer review expected from a good journal.
Sohath Vanegas,
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Zothanpuia

Dr. Zothan Puia is an Assistant Professor in the department of Biotechnology, Mizoram University, Pachhunga University Campus. His current research interests focus on antimicrobial plants and microbial metabolites.

Diaa Abd El-Moneim

My academic journey began with an MSc in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Suez Canal University, where my research focused on evaluating drought tolerance and disease resistance in wheat, providing a solid foundation in abiotic stress tolerance. This early work fueled my commitment to understanding and addressing plant resilience under stress conditions. Thanks to an Erasmus Mundus scholarship, I pursued my PhD at Complutense University of Madrid, where I investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying aluminum stress tolerance in rye. Notably, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship funded by AECID just before defending my thesis—a pivotal achievement that underscored the relevance of my research. This fellowship enabled me to join the National Center of Biotechnology (CNB) in Madrid. I gained expertise in proteomics, gene expression analysis, and molecular tool development to improve plant abiotic stress resilience. These experiences greatly expanded my knowledge of gene regulation and stress physiology and led to high-impact publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Abd El Moneim’s research encompasses multiple domains, including the study of morphological , physiological, and molecular mechanisms that govern plant responses to stress factors such as salinity, drought , aluminum toxicity, heat, and pathogens. His work in identifying gene families and stress-responsive proteins is complemented by his efforts to apply DNA barcoding and chloroplast genomic assemblies for species identification and development of molecular markers, as well as contributing to taxonomical and evolutionary concepts and identifying transcriptional regulators critical for stress adaptation, with particular emphasis on crops like wheat and wild plants adapted to extreme environments. His methodologies include designing and analyzing field trials , protein analysis, nucleic acid extraction, fingerprinting , GWAS , and the characterization of chloroplast genomes. Dr. Abd El Moneim’s expertise in molecular breeding and genomics focuses on improving abiotic stress tolerance in staple crops, especially for agriculture in developing countries.

Magdi T Abdelhamid

Magdi T. Abdelhamid is the Research Professor and Head of the Botany Department of the National Research Centre (NRC), Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Abdelhamid obtained his Ph.D. from Gifu University, Japan, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Western Australia, Australia. Dr. Abdelhamid is an expert in Plant physiology under environmental stresses. Dr. Abdelhamid’s research focuses on understanding the mechanism of drought and salinity tolerance and improvement of crop production, especially in arid areas. At the regional level, Dr. Abdelhamid was awarded the Arab Distinguished Scholar Award, The State of Kuwait, while at the national level Dr. Abdelhamid was awarded the prize of “State Scientific Excellence Award in Agricultural Sciences 2020” from The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Egypt. Dr. Abdelhamid is a member of several national and international committees e.g. member of the Food and Agriculture Research Council (ASRT), Secretary-General of the Egyptian National Committee for Soil Sciences (ASRT), member of International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, and Member of The Arab Water Council. He is a member of several editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals e.g. Crop Science (USA), Agronomy Journal (USA), as well as an ad hoc reviewer for more than 60 journals. Dr. Abdelhamid has been selected as an expert at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as the leading author of the Water chapter and contributing author of the Land Chapter of Global Environment Outlook (GEO) GEO-5 for assessment of the state and trends of the global environment. Additionally, he has been working as a Consultant for FAO-Egypt Representation, Food and Agriculture Organization, Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Abdelhamid has long experience in research and coordinating research projects at the national and international levels on on-farm water management and drought/heat/salinity tolerance on crops. Dr. Abdelhamid has been invited to give many scientific talks in several countries and has been invited to many national and international conferences.

Tika Adhikari

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.

Mohd Adnan

Dr. Mohd Adnan is an Associate Professor, Principal Investigator and Head of Academic Committee at Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. He did his PhD from University of Central Lancashire, UK; Master’s and Bachelor’s degree from Bangalore University, India; Post Graduate Diploma in Bioinformatics from SJAIT, India. He has more than 12 years of research, teaching and administrative experience. In his professional capacity, he has received various travel, observership and research grants as a Principal Investigator from various prestigious organizations.
He has successfully published 200+ publications in internationally recognized peer reviewed reputed journals, several book chapters for internationally renowned publishers and presented many papers and posters in various conferences/workshops globally. He has published widely in the field of phytomedicine, biofilms, drug discovery, natural products, nutraceuticals and functional foods with specialization in plant-based antibiofilm and anticancer agents, microbial biosurfactants, biofilms in food industry and medical settings, probiotics and cancer biology, novel biomolecules for/as health and antimicrobial agents.
He has reviewed 350+ manuscripts for 70+ internationally recognized peer-reviewed JCR journals and grant reviewer for many prestigious universities and organisations. In addition, he is a member of SFAM, UK and ESCMID, Switzerland and an Elected Member of Royal Society of Biology, UK. He also currently holds different editorial positions (Associate, Academic, Guest and Review Editor) in various esteemed journals and has edited 500+ manuscripts.

Faheem Ahmad

Dr. Faheem Ahmad is Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology and Nematology in the Department of Botany at Aligarh Muslim University, India. Author of over 40 peer-reviewed publications, his research interests include plant-nematode interaction, mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, nematode management and nematicidal bioagents.

Khawaja Shafique Ahmad

Dr. Shafique Ahmad is an Associate Professor at the University of Poonch Rawalakot, Pakistan. The focus of his research group is to investigate the complex interactions between plants and their environment.

Dr. Ahmad's group studies plant physiological and biogeochemical responses under abiotic stresses to natural environmental variation and to global and regional environmental changes in natural ecosystems, with research focusing on fundamental aspects of plant growth, structural and physiological responses to environmental stress and climate change, and production of secondary metabolites. In addition to this, their research is also focused on how climate change, environmental pollution and soil properties affect plants and terrestrial ecosystems.

Nazeer Ahmed

Dr. Nazeer Ahmed is a Professor (Assist) in the Department of Agriculture (Entomology), University of Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Dr. Nazeer was conferred the degree of Doctorate in Entomology from the prestigious seat of Northwest A&F, University, Yangling, Xian-China. For over a decade, his research expertise extended into the areas of Agricultural Entomology, Crop protection, Ecology, Biology, Insecticide Resistance, Biological Control of insects, Vector-borne diseases, Medical and urban entomology.

Jameel Al-Obaidi

Dr. Jameel R. Al-Obaidi obtained his PhD in Molecular biology from the University of Malaya, Malaysia. After completing his PhD, Dr Al-Obaidi worked for 7 years at the National Institutes of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia as a senior research officer and then research director. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris. Dr. Al-Obaidi's current research interests include but are not limited to research in Molecular biology, proteomics, protein markers, metabolomics, bioinformatics, plant disease and edible mushroom research.

He has published more than 50 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to 6 books. He has received local and international grants. He is involved in a number of national and international research projects around the world. Currently, Dr. Al-Obaidi serves as an editor in PLOS ONE, BMC Molecular and Cell Biology, PeerJ and Journal of Tropical Medicine, he is also a reviewer of several high-impact international scientific journals from Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor and Francis, and John Wiley Publishers.

Rubén Rellán Álvarez

I am an Assistant Professor at the National Laboratory of Genomics and Biodiversity in México since 2015. I did a postdoc in the Plant Biology Department of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford and a PhD in the Aula Dei Experimental Station in Zaragoza, Spain.

Carmen Arena

Carmen Arena is Associate Professor in Ecology at the Department of Biology of the University of Naples Federico II. She conducts researches in the ecological disciplines, dealing with studies concerning photosynthesis and morpho-functional adaptation strategies of higher plants and macroalgae in response to mono and multiple stresses in natural and controlled environments, with applications in ecological, biotechnological and agronomic field.

The research activity holds three main issues:
1) Regulation of the photosynthetic process in higher plants and macroalgae in response to ecological factors in the context of environmental change.
2) Study of plant growth in an extra-terrestrial environment.
3) Plant-soil interactions in natural and anthropized ecosystems.
These researches include a) the eco-physiological response of crop species to light quality; (b) the morpho-functional strategies of plant in phytoremediation studies (c)) the relationship between soil pollution, edaphic communities and photosynthesis in higher plants used in biomonitoring studies.
C. Arena is author of 130 publications peer-reviewed ISI-WoS/Scopus, and participated to more than 150 National and International congresses and workshops, most of them as speaker and invited speaker.

Francisco Balao

Francisco Balao is associate lecture of Plant Biology at the University of Seville; Past post-doc Marie-Curie fellow in the Department of Plant Systematics at the University of Vienna.

Research interests are mainly focused on how plant genomes interact with its environment across ecological and evolutionary timescale. We try to elucidate the mechanistic bases of the biodiversity through studies of molecular phylogenetics and phylogenomics, phylogeography, cytogenetics, ecophysiology, transcriptomics and reproductive biology.