Rhizospheric Microbiomes

Mohd. Sayeed Akhtar, PhD, is a Senior Assistant Professor at Gandhi Faiz-e-Aam College, Shahjahanpur, U.P., India. He received his PhD degree from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, prior to conducting postdoctoral research at the Botanical Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland, and Chonbuk National University, Republic of Korea. He was formerly an Assistant Professor at Jimma University in Ethiopia and research fellow at the Universiti Putra Malaysia’s (UPM) Institute of Tropical Agriculture. He has been listed among the top 2% of scientists in the world consecutively from past three years, according to Stanford University in the United States. Dr. Akhtar is the author and co-author of more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, and has edited over 20 books. He has received many awards and honors for his work. A member and fellow of many prestigious organizations, he is also an editorial board member and reviewer for several international journals. His current work focuses on the molecular biotechnology, bioremediation, biomineralization, nanofertilizers, and nanobiotechnology of rhizospheric plant-microbe interactions. Khalid Rehman Hakeem, PhD, is a Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After completing his doctorate (botany, specialization in plant eco-physiology and molecular biology) at Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Kashmir, India, and at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, where he was a postdoctoral fellow researcher for several years. Dr. Hakeem has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience in plant ecophysiology, biotechnology and molecular biology, medicinal plant research, plant-microbe-soil interactions, as well as in environmental studies. He is the recipient of several fellowships at both national and international levels. He has served as a visiting scientist at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. To date, Dr. Hakeem has authored and edited many books and has published many research publications in international journals and 55 book chapters in edited volumes. He is on the advisory board of Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, and is also a fellow of the Plantae Group of the American Society of Plant Biologists.