Protein Phosphatases and Stress Management in Plants

Girdhar K. Pandey received his B.Sc. (Hon.) in Biochemistry from Delhi University in 1992 and M.Sc. in Biotechnology in year 1994 from Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Subsequently, he joined Ph.D. in the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and worked in the field of calcium signal transduction under abiotic stresses in plants. He was awarded the Ph.D. degree in year 1999 and then pursued post-doctoral career at Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California at Berkeley in the year, 2000. There, he extended his work in the field of calcium mediated signaling in Arabidopsis by studying CBL-CIPKs, phosphatases, channels/transporters, and transcription factors involved in abiotic stresses. Currently, he is working as Professor in the Department of Plant Molecular Biology, Delhi University South Campus.
Pandey's research interests involve detail mechanistic interplay of signal transduction networks in plant under mineral nutrient deficiency (mostly potassium, calcium and nitrate) and abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity and oxidative stresses induced by heavy metals. His laboratory is working on the coding and decoding of mineral nutrient deficiency and abiotic stress signals by studying several signaling components such as calcium sensors such as calcineurin B-like (CBL) and CBL-interacting protein kinases (CIPK), phosphatases (mainly PP2C and DSP), transcription factors (AP2-domain containing or ERF, WRKY), transporters and channels proteins (potassium and calcium channels/transporters) in both Arabidopsis and rice. The long-term goal of his research group is to establish the mechanistic interplay and cross talk of mineral nutrient deficient conditions and different abiotic stress signaling cascades in Arabidopsis and rice model system by using the advance tools of bio-informatics, genetics, cell biology, biochemistry and physiology with greater emphasis on functionalgenomics approaches.