Bioactive Compounds in Underutilized Fruits and Nuts

Hosakatte Niranjana Murthy professor in Post-Graduate Department of Botany, Karnatak University, Dharwad, India, has obtained his Ph.D. degree from the same university. He has tremendous passion for research and academics. Since 1986, Prof. Murthy has served in various positions in the Post-Graduate Department of Botany, Karnatak University, Dharwad, India. Apart from his teaching experience of 33 years, he possesses extensive research experience in the area of plant biotechnology. Prof. Murthy has post-doctoral and collaborative research experience in many foreign research institutes. He worked at Biotechnology Division, 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 (2000-2001, 2002, 2004, 2006-2007, 2013-2014); 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, Biotechnology Overseas Associate (awarded by Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India), Brain Pool Fellowship (awarded by Korean Society of Science and Technology, South Korea), Visiting Fellowship (awarded by Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, South Korea), Commonwealth Post-doctoral Fellowship (awarded by Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK). He has successfully completed more than 15 research projects funded by various agencies and guided several Ph.D. students. Prof.Murthy has published more than 200 research articles in international peer reviewed journals with high impact factor. His research work has been cited more than 3600 times by fellow researchers and has H-index (Hirsch index) of 32 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 and bioreactor technologies for the production of biomass and secondarymetabolites have paved a way to commercialization of plant secondary metabolites. Various ginseng-based commercial products have been released and are currently available in market.

Vishwas Anant Bapat received his Ph.D. Degree in 1981 from the University of Mysore, Karnataka, India, and has worked at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India, for 36 years as a scientist. Post retirement, he joined Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India, as Emeritus Scientist CSIR, later Senior Scientist INSA, and is currently working as Honorary Scientist NASI. On the research front, Prof. Bapat has worked on basic and applied research which has paved way for the conceptual and practical development in plant biotechnology. Key themes and strategies established by him include micro propagation, rescue of endangered plants, somatic embryogenesis and synthetic seeds, induced mutations, protoplasts culture, molecular markers, transgenic plants, and plant secondary metabolites. The other frontier areas of his research are nano biotechnology, bioremediation of hazardous chemicals, and technology transfer to the users' agencies. Prof. Bapat has worked at Max Planck Institute, Koln, Germany, for a year. He has published more than 200 research papers including several book chapters. Prof. Bapat has guided Ph.D. students, postdoc students, and is an active member of numerous research projects. He is a fellow of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences, India; Indian National Science Academy, India; and National Academy of Sciences, India.