Mohit Kumar Swarnkar: Plant Direct First Author

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Mohit Kumar Swarnkar, first author of “Prickle morphogenesis in rose is coupled with secondary metabolite accumulation and governed by canonical MBW transcriptional complex”

Current Position: Ph.D. Candidate (GNDU, Amritsar) and Senior Technical Officer, Division of Biotechnology, CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur INDIA.

Education:   B.E. & M.Tech., Biotechnology (Rajiv Gandhi Technological University, Bhopal)

Non-scientific Interests:  Listening music, watching cricket and sci-fi, Nature walks and hikes

Brief bio:

An inherent desire to learn new insights in the biology subject, I chose to take biotechnology as major for B.E. and M.Tech. in 2008 from Madhav Institute of Technology and Science, Gwalior under RGPV, Bhopal. During my early career as Project Assistant in Genomics and Molecular Medicine Group at CSIR-IGIB (New Delhi), I explored the genotype-phenotype correlation in human complex disorders and gained experience in the latest high throughput sequencing platforms (Roche 454 and Illumina GAIIx). Being a technical graduate was an added advantage in getting a complete grip over the latest applications of sequencing technologies. Fascinated by high throughput NGS methods, I have joined as Technical Officer in Plant Molecular Biology Lab of Prof. Sanjay Kumar, Division of Biotechnology at CSIR-IHBT, Palampur in 2011. My work focuses on discovering the adaptation mechanisms in Himalayan plants for almost a decade now using state-of-the-art genomics platforms (Illumina NovaSeq 6000 and PacBio RSII systems). I am an active contributor in the planning and execution of various institutional genomics research activities.

While working on Himalayan plants, I observed, why only some plants have prickles and what is the basis of prickle formation. My general interests lie in understanding the molecular mechanisms that trigger the differentiation of epidermal cells in plants. In the future, I am excited to use multi-omics approaches to delineate the dynamics of prickle development across diverse plant lineages.