Tropane Alkaloids: Sources, Chemistry, Pharmacology and Biotechnology

Dr. T. Pullaiah is a former Professor at the Department of Botany at Sri Krishnadevaraya University in Andhra Pradesh, India, where he has taught for more than 35 years. He has held several positions at the university, including Dean, Faculty of Biosciences, Head of the Department of Botany, Head of the Department of Biotechnology, and Member of Academic Senate. He was President of Indian Botanical Society (2014), President of the Indian Association for Angiosperm Taxonomy (2013). Under his guidance 54 students obtained their doctoral degrees. He has authored 75 books, edited 45 books, and published over 340 research paperss. His books include Redsanders: Silviculture and Conservation (Springer), Genetically Modified crops (Springer), Sandalwood: Silviculture, Conservation and Applications (Springer), Advances in Cell and Molecular Diagnostics (Elsevier), Camptothecin and Camptothecin producing plants (Elsevier), Paclitaxel (Elsevier), Monograph on Brachystelma and Ceropegia in India (CRC Press), Global Biodiversity (4 volumes, Apple Academic Press) and Invasive Alien species (4 volumes, Wiley Blackwell). He was also a member of Species Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Professor Pullaiah received his PhD from Andhra University, India, attended Moscow State University, Russia, and worked as Post-Doctoral Fellow during 1976-1978.

Parvatam Giridhar is a chief scientist and Head of the Food Safety and Analytical Quality Control Laboratory at CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru, Karnataka, India, and also the Director of the Referral Food Laboratory (FSSAI) at CFTRI, Mysore. He obtained his PhD from Kakatiya University, Warangal. He was a DAAD Fellow (1995–1996) at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and BOYSCAST Fellow of DST, Government of India (2005–2006) at IRD, Montpellier, France. His research areas of interest are plant tissue culture, secondary metabolites, molecular biology, bioactive metabolites, and food science and technology. Since 2000 he has been engaged with R&D on coffee metabolites, tissue culture, and genomics. He has published research papers in leading international journals, reviews, and book chapters – 217, with 8045 citations, an h-index of 53, and an i10-index of 142. He attended International Conferences in Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Germany, France, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK), National Academy of Biological Sciences, India; Association of Food Scientists & Technologists, India; Indian Botanical Society; the Academy of Plant Sciences, India; and the Society for Applied Biotechnology, India. He holds nine patents and receives 14 important awards from various scientific associations and societies in India.

Dr. Zhe-Sheng Chen is the Director of the Institute for Biotechnology at St. John’s University. After obtaining his MD degree and MS degree in Toxicology, he had worked at CDC of Guangdong, China. He received his Ph. D degree from Kagoshima University in Japan. He conducted his postdoctoral training at Fox Chase Cancer Center. In 2004, he joined the College of Pharmacy at St. John’s University and was promoted to full Professor in 2012. He is an expert in the field of multi-drug resistance (MDR) following chemotherapy, with the goal of his lab being the development of more effective anticancer drugs. Dr. Chen is an editor-in-chief of Drug Resistance Updates (DRU), Recent Patents on Anticancer Drug Discovery (RPADD). He has published ~550 peer-reviewed articles and co-authored 15 book chapters. His articles were published in Chemical Society of Review, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Advanced Science, Molecular Cancer, Drug Resistance Updates, and Cancer Research etc. Dr. Chen participated in grant reviews for the NIH (USA), and Chinese National Natural Science Foundation etc.