The transgenic technology has revolutionized agriculture remarkably with the development of insect and herbicide resistant crop varieties. The commercialization of biotech crops has been outstanding in terms of crop productivity; hence proved highly advantageous to the farming community worldwide. Using plant transformation technologies, I have developed insect resistant cotton expressing cry gene from Bacillus thuringiensis under the control of different promoters i.e. constitutive, tissue specific and wound inducible promoter. I am particularly interested in finding out the alternate sources for insect and disease resistance in crop plants. In this regard, I am focusing on RNA interference and genome editing technologies to combat insect pests and diseases. I have published more than 100 peer reviewed research articles in international and national journals whereas have edited one book “Potato Production Worldwide”. I am also editor of several SCI indexed journal like PLOS ONE, Frontiers in Plant Sciences and Frontiers in Genetics etc.
After earning PhD from University of the Punjab in 2010, I have served University of Ankara (Turkey), University of Bologna (Italy) and Nigde Omer Halisdemir University (Turkey) for a period of 11 years. Now a days, I am leading seed biotechnology laboratories in CEMB along with Prof. Dr. Abdul Qayyum Rao where we apply all modern molecular tools to engineer insect pest and disease resistance traits in crop plants.