Elsevier New and Future Developments in Microbial Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Crop Improvement through Microbial Biotechnology

Crop Improvement through Microbial Biotechnology explains how certain techniques can be used to manipulate plant growth and development, focusing on the cross-kingdom transfer of genes to incorporate novel phenotypes in plants, including the utilization of microbes at every step, from cloning and characterization, to the production of a genetically engineered plant. This book covers microbial biotechnology in sustainable agriculture, aiming to improve crop productivity under stress conditions. It includes sections on genes encoding avirulence factors of bacteria and fungi, viral coat proteins of plant viruses, chitinase from fungi, virulence factors from nematodes and mycoplasma, insecticidal toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis, and herbicide tolerance enzymes from bacteria. Review Covers recent developments in microbial biotechnology, plant-microbe interaction and their application to food producing, crop improvements, energy and sustainable development About the Author Ram Prasad, Ph.D. is assistant professor at the Amity Institute of Microbial Technology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India. His research interest includes plant-microbe interactions, fungal biology, sustainable agriculture, and microbial nanobiotechnology. Dr. Prasad has more than hundred publications to his credit, including research papers and book chapters and five patents issued or pending, and edited or authored several books. Dr. Prasad has 12 years of teaching experience, and he has been awarded the Young Scientist Award (2007) and Prof. J. S. Datta Munshi Gold Medal (2009) by the International Society for Ecological Communications, the FSAB fellowship (2010) by the Society for Applied Biotechnology, the Outstanding Scientist Award (2015) in the field of microbiology by Venus International Foundation, UICC Fellows (USA, 2015) and the American Cancer Society UICC International Fellowship for Beginning Investigators (USA, 2014). In 2014-2015, Dr. Prasad served as visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, USA. Currently assistant professor at MD University, Rohtak, India, Sarvajeet Singh Gill has made significant contributions to abiotic stress tolerance. Sarvajeet Gill’s main area of research includes genetic engineering, stress physiology and molecular biology. Together with Narendra Tuteja he is working on plant helicases and discovered a novel function of plant MCM6 and PHH45 in tobacco and rice for salinity stress tolerance that will help to improve crop production at sub-optimal conditions. Furthermore, he also reported that Cd at high dose perturbs growth, photosynthesis and nitrogen metabolism while at low dose it up regulates sulfur assimilation and antioxidant machinery in garden cress. Sarvajeet Gill has edited several books and has a number of research papers, review articles, and book chapters to his name. An elected fellow of numerous national & international academies, Dr. Narendra Tuteja is currently Professor and head at Amity Institute of Microbial Technology, NOIDA, India, and visiting Scientist at International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, India. He has made significant contributions to crop improvement under adverse conditions, reporting the first helicase from plant and human cells and demonstrating new roles of Ku autoantigen, nucleolin and eIF4A as DNA helicases. Furthermore, he discovered novel functions of helicases, G-proteins, CBL-CIPK and LecRLK in plant stress tolerance, and PLC and MAP-kinase as effectors for Gα and Gβ G-proteins. Narendra Tuteja also reported several high salinity stress tolerant genes from plants and fungi and developed salt/drought tolerant plants.