R ElanchezhianDr. R. Elanchezhian was born on 1971 in Vandal village in Sivaganga Distt. of Tamil Nadu. He studied B.Sc. (Agri.) during 1988 to 1992 from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (Coimbatore), and M. Sc. (Plant Physiology) and Ph. D. (Plant Physiology) i 1995 and 1998, respectively, from IARI, New Delhi. He joined ARS (ICAR) in 1998 and started his career at ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands as a Scientist/ Scientist Sr. Scale (1998-2006). Then as a Sr. Scientist he worked at ICAR-RCER, Patna (2006-2012). Presently he is working as Principal Scientist at ICAR-IISS Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, since February 2012. During his scientific career at ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair he worked on physiological and biotechnological management of abiotic/biotic stresses in rice, solanaceous vegetables with emphasise on salinity, drought and insect resistance. He has generated promising somaclones of rice and solanaceous vegetables with improved agro-morphological traits besides having moderate tolerance towards salinity and bacterial wilt and insect borer. He was involved in sustainable management of plant biodiversity of A&N Islands including collection, characterization, conservation and enhancement of ecologically and economically important plant species. He has got registered several indigenous germplasms of rice with NBPGR New Delhi. At ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna he continued the work on biotechnological and physiological management of abiotic stress tolerance with special reference to submergence and drought stress conditions. Four drought tolerant rice lines with yield potential of 3.2 tons/ha have been identified for drought prone areas of eastern region of India. Besides three promising rice lines suitable for aerobic conditions with yield potential of 3.5 tons/ha were also identified. He has been associated with an ICAR network project on climate change and worked on modeling plant growth of major agricultural crops viz rice, wheat, maize and chickpea with respect to climate change in eastern region of India. He has undergone an international training on marker assisted selection at Clemson University, USA, wherein the genome of bitter melon has been mapped using AFLP and SSR markers. Besides the isolation and sequence characterization of anti-HIV (Map30) and anti-diabetic (Insulin) gene from bitter melon have also been done. Presently at ICAR-IISS, Bhopal, he is working on Nanoparticle delivery and internalization in plant systems for improving nutrient use efficiency of agricultural crops. Besides, he has been associated with projects on management for improving nutrient use efficiency of crops. Dr Elanchezhian has contributed more than 100 publications, including 46 peer reviewed research papers, 8 research bulletins, 2 edited books, 9 book chapters, 7 popular articles, 24 conference proceedings and 4 training manuals which has been widely cited throughout the scientific community. He is a recipient of Dr. GS Sirohi Award (2002) and Dr. RD Asana Award for Young Scientist (2005) given by the Indian Society for Plant Physiology. He is bestowed with Fellowship of Indian Society for Plant Physiology for contribution in the field of Plant Physiology and Cognate sciences in the year 2008. He has guided several M.Sc. students for their thesis work. He has served as expert of several important committees Read More Read Less