Plant, Soil and Microbes (PDF)

Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Plant Pathology and Plant Nano-biotechnology. Dr. Akhtar has received several prestigious fellowships at national and international levels. His promising approach and dedication stands him in the row of foremost scientist in the field of Plant-Microbe Interaction and Plant Nano-biotechnology. He is an author and co-author of about 45 research articles in peer reviewed journals, contributed 12 book chapters in the books published by Springer-Verlag and also edited 3 books with international publishers. He is serving the scientific community as editorial board member and reviewer of several high impact international Journals. His current research is focused on the rhizospheric plant-microbe interactions and their molecular biotechnology, bioremediation, biomineralization, nano-fertilizers and Nanobiotechnology.




Prof. Dr. Siti Nor Akmar Abdullah (PhD) is currently the Head of the Laboratory of Plantation Crops at the Institute of Tropical Agriculture and a Professor in Plant Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Her PhD research was mainly conducted at the John Innes Centre in UK. Her current research focuses on the transcriptional regulation of oil and vitamin E biosynthesis, fruit ripening process, plant host-pathogen interaction and nutrient uptake mechanism in oil palm. She has led several research projects at the national level and secured research grants from oil palm industry members. She has published more than 50 papers in citation-indexed journals and also five patents granted in Malaysia and USA particularly on oil palm tissue-specific promoters. Twenty PhD students from Malaysia and other countries have graduated under her as the main or co-supervisor. She has delivered several talks as an invited speaker in various countries like China, India and Indonesia and also served as a reviewer for many international peer-reviewed journals. She has led national and international conferences and workshops on plant biotechnology jointly organised by UPM and Wageningen University and the University of Nottingham. She has established the Arabidopsis thaliana laboratory in MPOB, Malaysia and transgenic greenhouse (certified as Biosafety Level 2) in UPM.