Genetic Diversity of Fruits and Nuts

Hosakatte Niranjana Murthy is a professor in the Postgraduate Department of Botany, Karnatak University, Dharwad, India, and has served in several positions in the department since. He also has a PhD from the same university. Apart from teaching experience in the area of plant biotechnology, Prof. Murthy has post-doctoral and collaborative research experience in many foreign research institutes. He worked at the Biotechnology Division of Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, India (1992); Crop Science Department, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada (1993); Research Centre for the Development of Horticultural Technology, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, South Korea several times; and Department of Biological Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom (2005-2006) as a post-doctoral fellow/visiting scientist. Prof. Murthy is the recipient of various prestigious fellowships including Biotechnology National Associate and Biotechnology Overseas Associate (awarded by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India), Brian Pool Fellowship (awarded by the Korean Society of Science and Technology, South Korea), visiting fellowship (awarded by the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation, South Korea), Commonwealth Post-doctoral Fellowship (awarded by the Korean Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK), and Prof. Raja Ramanna Chair (awarded by the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India). He has completed more than 15 research projects funded by various agencies and supervised 22 PhD students. Prof. Murthy has published 280 research articles in international peer-reviewed journals with high impact factors. His research has been cited more than 6000 times by fellow researchers and his H-index (Hirsch Index) is 41 as recorded by Scopus.

Prof. Murthy has developed biotechnological methods for the production of pharmaceutically important secondary metabolites from cell and organ cultures of ginseng, Siberian ginseng, echinacea, and St. John's wort using large-scale bioreactors along with South Korean collaborators. His experimental investigations on the use of adventitious root cultures in bioreactor technologies for the production of biomass and secondary metabolites have paved the way for the commercialization of plant-based pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.