Advances in AI for Plant Protection

Kamel A. Abd-Elsalam, Ph.D., is currently a Research Professor and Deputy Director for Research at the Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt. Dr. Kamel's research interests include developing and improving plant biosecurity diagnostic tools, understanding fungal pathogen genomes, and creating eco-friendly hybrid nanomaterials for controlling toxigenic fungi and plant diseases as well as applications in agroecosystems. Kamel earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Plant Pathology from Christian Albrechts University of Kiel (Germany) and Suez Canal University (Egypt). In 2008, he was awarded a postdoc-toral fellowship from the same institution. Dr. Kamel served as a Visiting Associate Professor at Mae Fah Luang University in Thailand, the Institute of Microbiology at TUM in Germany, the Laboratory of Phytopathology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and the Plant Protection Department at Sassari University in Italy.

He has published 41 books related to nanobiotechnology applications in agriculture and plant protection with major publishing houses such as Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Elsevier. Since 2019, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier book series Nanobiotechnology for Plant Protection and as the Series Editor for Applications of Genome Modified Plants and Microbes in Food and Agriculture. Additionally, he has been an active member of the Elsevier Advisory Panel since 2020, providing feedback and suggestions to improve Elsevier's products and services. He has published more than 328 scientific research articles in international and regional specialized journals with high impact factors, and has an H-index of 55, an i-10 index of 173, and over +11802 citations. He served as a Guest Editor for the Journal of Fungi, Plants, and Microorganisms, and as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Genomic Assay Technology, Agrochemicals, and Plant Nano Biology. He was ranked in the top 2% of the most influential scientists in the world in nanobiotechnology for 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 by Elsevier and Stanford University. In 2014, he was awarded the Federation of Arab Scientific Research Councils Prize for excellent scientific research in biotechnology (fungal genomics), ranking first. Additionally, he received the Egyptian State Award for Agricultural Scientific Excellence from ASRT, Egypt, in 2022 with a silver medal.

Aftab Ahmad, Ph.D., is currently working as an Associate Professor at the Natural and Medical Sciences Research Center (NMSRC), University of Nizwa, Oman. Dr. Aftab's research interests include developing biotic stress-tolerant gene-edited plants using CRISPR/Cas technology. He has published four international books on CRISPR and more than 40 research articles in international peer reviewed journals including Frontiers in Plant Science, Journal of Biomedical Sciences, Scientific Reports-Nature, PLOS One, Journal of Translational Medicine, Plant Molecular Biology Reporter, Molecules, Journal of Cereal Science, and Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. Dr. Aftab pursued his Ph.D. and postdocs in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Shizuoka, Japan, under the Center of Excellence (COE, 21st Century) program. He works as a guest editor in Frontiers in Genome Editing and Frontiers in Plant Sciences. Dr. Aftab also served as a visiting scientist in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, USA. Dr. Aftab has more than ten years of teaching experience in biochemistry and molecular biology, and his research focuses on CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing in plants.