Mukesh Jain's Biography

Mukesh Jain, Associate Professor, School of Computational & Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Dr. Mukesh Jain is presently associated with Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, as Associate Professor. Before this, he served at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi as Staff Scientist.

Dr. Jain has done outstanding work in the area of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology. He has been instrumental in the genome and transcriptome sequencing, annotation and analysis of chickpea and rice, and identification/development of functional molecular markers. Dr. Jain is one of very few leaders in generation of genomic resources using next generation sequencing technologies in India. His work has generated enormous genomic resources for chickpea and rice, which are being used for crop improvement using molecular breeding and biotechnological approaches for various agronomic traits. He has made significant contribution in understanding the molecular (transcriptomic and epigenetic) mechanisms underlying various abiotic stress responses and identified several novel key candidate genes involved in stress tolerance. Dr. Jain has published more than 80 articles in international refereed journals of high repute and impact factor and filed three patents.

For his scientific contributions, Dr. Jain has been honored with several awards. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences India, Allahabad and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi. He has been an Associate Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi. He has been honored with NASI-SCOPUS Young Scientist Award, ‘Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award’ from the Department of Biotechnology, ‘INSA Medal for Young Scientist’ and ‘Professor LSS Kumar Memorial Award’ from the Indian National Science Academy, ‘Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award’ from the National Academy of Sciences India, and ‘Young Scientist Award’ from Indian Science Congress Association. Dr. Jain is serving on the editorial board of reputed international journals, such as Scientific Reports, Molecular Breeding and PLoS ONE.

Dr. Jain’s current research interests include understanding the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of abiotic stress responses and seed development using advanced state-of-art technologies.