Mr. Muhammad Usman, Former , Government of Pakistan who retired from service after a spotless career of about 35 years with senior level experience on research and development of integrated agricultural production particularly Plant Genomics on a sustainable way. Mr. Usman is basically an agricultural scientist working on the yield and quality of various products and published several research papers. Mr. Usman is consider as the senior most scientist in the world, always participated in the international conferences as a keynote speech, renowned speaker, organizing committee member as well as moderator of the conferences around the world.

Agriculture

Ana Claudia Macedo Vieira has completed his PhD at the age of 36 years from University of São Paulo, Brazil. She is associate professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and coordinates the pharmacobotany Laboratory, which conducts research with galls on sandbank environment, control of drugs and medicinal plants. Develops university extension projects with rational use of medicinal plants and unconventional food plants to farmers. She has published papers in reputed journals of Plant Science, Especially with galls and metabolical changes on host plants, and research with medicinal plants,

Plant Genetics

Dr. Yinghua Huang is a Research Geneticist for U.S. Department of Agriculture and serves as the Lead Scientist for the Plant Genetics Program. Before that, he served as faculty member for Oklahoma State University for ten years and now remains an Adj. Professor at the university. He is a member of editorial boards for several scientific journals. He earned a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Michigan Technological University. His scientific background is in plant genetics and molecular biology, and he has considerable research experience in plant biotechnology, genomics and crop improvement. During his early career, Dr. Huang made a breakthrough in developing a reliable system for producing transgenic larch plant, which represents the first record of genetically engineered conifer tree, carrying the important traits such as resistance to insects and herbicide. Another example of his recent research accomplishments is the systematic evaluation of the US sorghum germplasm collection (> 42,000 accessions), leading to the discovery of important new sources of resistance to greenbug and sugarcane aphids, the most important insects of field crops, including barley, sorghum and wheat, then incorporation of the new resistance into crop breeding programs. Furthermore, using the cutting-edge microarray, RNA-seq and the next-generation sequencing technologies, his lab has generated the differential expression profiles which resulted in the identification of the key genes and the networks that regulate the host defense against insect pests, crop yield traits, and bioenergy quality in sorghum

Plant Genetics, Molecular biology and Microbiology

Dr. Florence V. Dunkel has done his Ph.D in Entomology, from Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison. She also has many honors For her Excellent Teaching and outstanding Research Accomplishments in Management of Grain Quality and Security in World Markets 2004. she also received Charles Lindbergh Grant Award in Anthropology. She also has many keynote presentations in various summits. She also received EXTRAMURAL GRANTS for Teaching.

Research interest of Florence V. Dunkel include plant-based natural products for insect management, particularly related to postharvest ecosystems. Current projects include exploration of Montana wheat varietal resistance to postharvest insects; use of plant-based products with entomopathogenic fungi for management of insects; and use of natural products in the holistic management of malaria in West African (Malian) villages.

Dr. Shigetou Namba works in Department of Agricultural and Environmental Biology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences in the university of Tokyo.

Agricultural and Environmental Biology, Molecular Plant Pathology

Dr. Stephen K. Herbert researches the stress physiology of photosynthetic organisms. He is especially interested in oxidative stress and the antioxidant systems of chloroplasts and cyanobacteria. The antioxidants of chloroplasts are essential for detoxifying the reactive forms of oxygen that form as a byproduct of photosynthesis. The specific protective roles of superoxide dismutases are the subject of current research. Dr. Herbert earned his Ph.D. with a study of the stress physiology of red algae at the University of Washington, Department of Botany. Following postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology, Dr. Herbert accepted a faculty position at the University of Idaho, where he was assistant and associate professor of Botany. After eight years at Idaho, Dr. Herbert went to the University of Wyoming, where he is now an associate professor in the Department of Botany.

Research interest of Stephen K. Herbert include Principles of Biology, General Biology, Plant Physiology, Biology of Plants and Fungi.

Doctor of Philosophy in Genetics, Purdue University, 1999 Master of Science in Horticulture, Clemson University, 1994 Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India, 1991

Identifying and characterizing plant genes in nonhost disease resistance Omics approach to understand the disease resistance and susceptibility to cotton root rot fungus (Phymatotrichopsis onmivora) Optimizing or improving virus-induced gene silencing in crops such as sorghum and cassava Identifying and characterizing plant genes involved in Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation Translational research to confer biotic and abiotic stress (drought) tolerance in crop plants. Tnt1 insertion mutagenesis in Medicago truncatula and Brachypodium distachyon

Grace Chen has obtained her PhD from University of Wisconsin at Madison and her Postdoctoral studies from University of California, Plant Gene Expression Center. She has published more than 44 papers in reputed journals and she is globally recognized as an expert on oilseed biotechnology.

Plant Gene Expression Center

Dr. Yinghua Huang is a Research Geneticist for U.S. Department of Agriculture and serves as the Lead Scientist for the Plant Genetics Program. Before that, he served as faculty member for Oklahoma State University for ten years and now remains an Adj. Professor at the university. He is a member of editorial boards for several scientific journals. He earned a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Michigan Technological University. His scientific background is in plant genetics and molecular biology, and he has considerable research experience in plant biotechnology, genomics and crop improvement. During his early career, Dr. Huang made a breakthrough in developing a reliable system for producing transgenic larch plant, which represents the first record of genetically engineered conifer tree, carrying the important traits such as resistance to insects and herbicide. Another example of his recent research accomplishments is the systematic evaluation of the US sorghum germplasm collection (> 42,000 accessions), leading to the discovery of important new sources of resistance to greenbug and sugarcane aphids, the most important insects of field crops, including barley, sorghum and wheat, then incorporation of the new resistance into crop breeding programs. Furthermore, using the cutting-edge microarray, RNA-seq and the next-generation sequencing technologies, his lab has generated the differential expression profiles which resulted in the identification of the key genes and the networks that regulate the host defense against insect pests, crop yield traits, and bioenergy quality in sorghum

Plant Genetics, Molecular biology and Microbiology

Dr. Arron Carter is the O.A. Vogel Endowed Chair in Winter Wheat Breeding and Director of the winter wheat breeding and genetics program at Washington State University. His research focuses in on developing winter wheat cultivars with high yield potential, excellent end-use quality, and genetic resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. To research these goals, he implements the most recent technology available, including marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, high-throughput phenotyping, and other direct and indirect selection methods. His cultivars make up roughly 35% of the production in the Pacific Northwest and Dr. Carter works closely with his stakeholders to ensure his varieties help fit into current cropping systems and lead to high economic return and sustainable agricultural systems.

Plant Breeding

Doctor of Philosophy in Genetics, Purdue University, 1999 Master of Science in Horticulture, Clemson University, 1994 Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India, 1991

Identifying and characterizing plant genes in nonhost disease resistance Omics approach to understand the disease resistance and susceptibility to cotton root rot fungus (Phymatotrichopsis onmivora) Optimizing or improving virus-induced gene silencing in crops such as sorghum and cassava Identifying and characterizing plant genes involved in Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation Translational research to confer biotic and abiotic stress (drought) tolerance in crop plants. Tnt1 insertion mutagenesis in Medicago truncatula and Brachypodium distachyon

John Salmeron is the Director of PlantSciences at Precision BioSciences, Inc. in Durham NC, USA, and has worked in the field of plant biotechnology for over 20 years. Prior to joining Precision, he held positions in business development and led the agricultural R&D team at Intrexon Corporation, a leader in synthetic biology. John was a research portfolio manager at Syngenta Biotechnology Inc., and held leadership roles directing teams in trait development and genomics. He is the founder of eiiConsulting, an early-stage biotechnology consulting firm, has an A.B. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Ph.D. from Duke University.

Plant sciences, Genome editing

W. P. is an Assoc. Prof. of Organic Chem. at Kasetsart University at Kamphaengsaen, Thailand. He obtained BS from Prince of Songkla University, Thailand and MS and PhD from Chiang Mai University in Thailand and post-doct (Natural Products chemistry) at NIES in Japan. His research interest has two main intersecting themes. The first involves the development of methods for the synthesis of novel bioactive compounds and the study of their spectroscopic, chemical and pharmacological properties. Mechanistic aspects of these and associated syntheses are also of interest. New synthetic methods for antibiotic compounds are also being investigated

His research interest has two main intersecting themes. The first involves the development of methods for the synthesis of novel bioactive compounds and the study of their spectroscopic, chemical and pharmacological properties

Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Novi Sad. Honorary Member for International Sunflower Association.

Agricultural engineering , genetic plant

S YANG has completed her PhD from Charles Stuart University, Australia. She has been an Associate Professor at Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China until 2009. Currently she is a Research officer at School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide, Australia. Her major research work on the germplasm evaluation, grain legume crops breeding and molecular marker, herbicide selection and genomic study. She have published with Colleagues in two book chapters; 30 refereed journal papers.

Agriculture

Prof. Gad Galili Department of Plant Sciences Weizmann Institute of Science

Genetic, metabolic engineering, metabolomics, genomics and bioinformatics tools to study the operation of amino acid metabolism in plants within the context of the entire system including transcriptional, metabolic and physiological networks. We show that besides the importance of lysine metabolism in protein synthesis, under stress conditions, lysine metabolism also cross interacts with stress-associated gene expression and also with metabolic programs associated with cellular energy

Department of Plant and Environmental Science,Associate Professor University of Copenhagen

PLANT BIOCHEMISTRY

Parwinder Kaur is working as a Research Scientist with a focus on the Plant Molecular Genetics & Genomics at the Centre for Plant Genetics and Breeding (PGB) at the University of Western Australia. Dr Kaur has received the Science and Innovation Award for young people in Agriculture, Fisheries

genome scaffold for subterranean clover using the de-novo sequencing pipelines anchored to a high resolution genetic map and BioNano optical maps for trait mapping. She has been working with a team of researchers across various disciplines to develop methodologies to enable breeders to identify environmentally friendly pasture legume to tackle future challenges for Australian livestock industries.

Dr Meixue Zhou has been involved in plant research for more than 30 years which includes more than 10 years of experience in China. His major research areas include physiological and molecular mechanisms of plant biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. He is serving as a review panel member for ARC of Australia and the Natural Science Foundation of China. He is the co-director of Australia China Research Centre of Plant Stress Biology. In last 10 years more than 100 papers were published in various peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of editorial board of several journals.

Dr Meixue Zhou has been involved in plant research for more than 30 years which includes more than 10 years of experience in China. His major research areas include physiological and molecular mechanisms of plant biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. He is serving as a review panel member for ARC of Australia and the Natural Science Foundation of China. He is the co-director of Australia China Research Centre of Plant Stress Biology. In last 10 years more than 100 papers were published in various peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of editorial board of several journals.

Clive Lo received his PhD at Purdue University. He is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong. His laboratory has been working on the biosynthesis pathways of flavonoids in the cereal crops rice and sorghum.

They have recently identified a number of phylogenetically conserved enzymes for biosynthesis of flavones which are prevalent in vegetative tissues of grasses. They represent good targets to engineer flavones in edible tissues which do not normally synthesize these health-beneficial phytochemicals.

Hao Cheng, director of National Center for Tea Improvement, TRICAAS, China has his expertise in tea breeding. He is especially interested in several important traits in tea plants, such as flavonoid biosynthesis, nitrogen uptake and self-incompatibility

Tea Research Institute Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (TRICAAS)

Permanent position as scientific researcher at the National Research Council, Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (formerly Institute of Plant Genetics) Portici, Italy.

Agricultural Sciences

2008 is Assistant Professor at the Department of Arboreal Crops,2011 is Confirmed Researcher at the Department of Arboreal Crops,Þ currently with the Department of Agricultural Sciences in the Department of Arboreal crops merged.

Agricultural Sciences.