Dr. Govind P. Rao is working as Head and Senior Scientific Officer (Plant Pathology) at Sugarcane Research Station, Gorakhpur, India. He did his Ph.D. in Plant Virology in 1987 from Gorakhpur University on pea viruses. Dr. Rao is a Fellow of Indian Psychopathological Society and Sugarcane Technologists Association of India. He has published 10 edited books, 5 text books and 100 research publications to his credit. He is editor-in-chief of "Sugar Tech", an international journal of Sugarcane crops and related industries. He is also regular member of American Psychopathological Society, British Society for Plant Pathology, Indian Virologial Society and American Microbiological Society. He has been awarded several national and international academic fellowships and honours for doing valuable research in plant pathology, biotechnology, postdoctoral work and attending international workshops and conferences. He has worked and visited many scientific laboratories of USA, France, Scotland, UK, Sri Lanka, Yugoslavia, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China and Thailand. He has been involved in the research on biotechnological and molecular characterization and management of agricultural plant pathogens for the last 20 years. Currently he is working on characterization and management of sugarcane diseases of South East Asia.
Dr. Yipeng Zhao is the Professor of horticulture and Assistant President (academic) of Henan Institute of Science and Technology, China. He did Ph.D. degree in Horticulture from University of Essex (UK) in 2004, and M Sc. in Ecosystem Analysis and Governance from University of Warwick (UK) in 2000. Yipeng Zhao started work at Henan Institute of Science and Technology (HIST), in 1983 as teaching and research on horticulture. In 1998, he was awarded a Darwin Scholarship by the British Council studying M Sc. in Ecosystem Analysis and Governance at University of Warwick, UK. Then, he was successfully applied a PhD Studentship from Writ tie College of University of Essex, UK and completed doctoral research on Monoclonal Variation and Crop Failure of Micro propagated Rhubarb in 2003, followed by working at the World Crop Center of Writ tie College as a postdoctoral fellow for a year. Yipeng contributed extensively to the somaclonal variation of micro propagated rhubarb and is a leading scientist of rhubarb research. He has published about 60 papers on horticulture in refereed journals, co-authored 3 books, 10 invited presentations at international conferences. Yi pang's research interests are mainly on horticulture and plant biotechnology, plant tissue culture and micro propagation, and somaclonal variation and plant cytogenetic.
