Dr. Ashverya Laxmi did her Masters in Botany from Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra in\r\nthe year 1996. She did her PhD. in Plant Molecular Biology from University of Delhi South\r\nCampus with Professor Jitendra P. Khurana in the year 2002 wherein she isolated and\r\ncharacterized Arabidopsis mutants defective in various hormone signal transduction\r\npathways. She moved to Ohio State University, Ohio, USA in the year 2003 to do her Post\r\ndoctorate studies with Dr. J.C. Jang wherein she worked on characterization of sugar signal transduction pathway in model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. She moved to Samuel Robert Nobel Foundation, Oklahoma, USA for yet another post doctorate in the year 2005 wherein she worked on understanding regulation of auxin transport by various light conditions and its effect on controlling root growth and development. She joined as Staff Scientist at National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi after coming back from USA in the\r\nyear 2006 and has been serving the institute for the past 15 years. Her research interests include understanding the interaction between sugar and plant hormones and its effect on plant growth, development and stress responses. She has published several research articles in internationally renowned journals such as Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, Plant Cell Environment, Journal of Experimental Botany and Journal of Biological Chemistry.\r\n\r\nAcademic and Research Achievements:\r\n\r\nDr Ashverya Laxmi has done outstanding work in exploring cross-talk between various\r\nenvironmental signals with endogenous cues in regulating plant growth, development, fitness and stress responses. Plant hormones play an important role in controlling plant growth and development right from seed germination to the completion of its life cycle and eventually senescence. Plant’s energy status profoundly interacts with plant hormone signaling and decides the final output. Glucose signaling has gained prominence in the past two decades since its downstream signaling partners play a very important role in modulating plant hormone signaling. To explore glucose and hormone signaling interaction in controlling plant growth, development and stress responses, Dr. Laxmi has used the model plant Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis has a very small genome size, short life cycle, availability of vast mutant resources and easy transformation protocol, which makes it a model plant of choice to explore complex signaling interactions in the plants.\r\n\r\nThe work done in Dr. Laxmi’s lab has given novel insights in to the role of glucose as a major signaling molecule controlling various aspects of plant growth and development in Arabidopsis.\r\nGlucose has been identified not only a major regulator and modulator of plant hormone\r\nsignaling controlling root architecture in Arabidopsis but also in regulating hypocotyl elongation growth both under normal as well as shaded conditions in Arabidopsis. The work done by Dr. Laxmi’s group on understanding the role of glucose signaling in providing thermotolerance in plants is equally interesting. Glucose mediated thermotolerance involves HSPs induction via TOR-E2Fa signaling module. Glucose primes accumulation of H3K4me3 trimethylation epigenetic marks at thermomemory associated loci (sHSPs), which leads to development of thermomemory in plants and protects it from subsequent heat stress exposures.\r\n\r\nDr. Laxmi’s group has functionally characterized members of a glucose-regulated FLZ (FCS-Like Zinc Finger) family, which contains domain of unknown function (DUF581). The members of this gene family (FLZ6 and FLZ10) regulate SnRK1 and TOR kinases in plants, which are ancient master regulators of energy signaling, growth and resilience. In addition, glucose-regulated RSS1 (REGULATED BY SUGAR AND SHADE1) gene encoding for an atypical basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) protein has been characterized, which regulates hypocotyl elongation in response to multiple signals, such as light, shade and phytohormones via regulating the central growth regulatory bHLH/HLH module.\r\n\r\nThe findings from Dr. Laxmi’s group have the potential to be utilized in crop plants for improving various growth and developmental parameters. Glucose signaling can be altered in crops for providing better root system architecture to equip them with better anchorage, water and nutrient absorption capacity. Similarly, understanding the glucose regulation of hypocotyl length/shade stress response in above ground parts is very important in crop biotechnology as this knowledge can be utilized to grow crop plants densely in monocultures without compromising their yield due to anticipatory shade avoidance response. Characterization of regulators of SnRK1/TOR signaling also has important biotechnological implications since it provides important insights in to molecular regulation of major energy and stress sensors in plants and provides an opportunity to alter the same by genetic manipulation. Glucose signaling\r\ncan also be altered to alter/enhance thermomemory in plants.\r\n\r\nOther Contributions: Served as reviewer for several international project grants and reputed \r\n\r\nAward name Year\r\nMENDELU International Development grant 2019\r\nEMBO grant to chair session and present invited talk in EMBOTOR\r\nconference at Bischoffsheim, France 2018\r\nDBT-CTEP travel grant to chair the session and present work in\r\nEMBO workshop held at Strasbourg, France 2018\r\nIndia Bioscience-EMBO travel grant to present invited talk in\r\nIndia-EMBO Young Investigator Meet at Barcelona 2017\r\nBest poster award in American Society of Plant Biology\r\nconference (Midwest ASPB Sectional Meeting, March 19-20,\r\n2004) held at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2004\r\nInternational travel grant (ISPMB fellowship) to present poster in\r\nInternational conference on Arabidopsis Research held at Seville\r\n(Spain) 2002\r\n\r\nNational recognition:\r\nName Year\r\nJC Bose National Fellowship 2021\r\nElected Fellow of IASc (Indian Academy of Sciences 2021) for\r\ncarrying out fundamental work in understanding signal\r\npathways network involved in controlling plant growth and\r\ndevelopment. Her research provides novel insights on the role of\r\nglucose as a major signalling molecule and its interaction with\r\nhormone pathways to control plant architecture and stress\r\nresponse. 2021\r\nElected Fellow of INSA (Indian National Science Academy from\r\nthe year 2021) for carrying out seminal work on the cross-talk\r\nbetween multiple signalling pathways for plant growth and\r\ndevelopment. Her research provides novel insights on the role of\r\nglucose as a major signalling molecule and its interaction with\r\nhormone pathways to control plant architecture and stress\r\nresponse. 2021\r\nElected Fellow of NASI (National Academy of Sciences, India in\r\nthe year 2016) for her significant contribution in elucidating\r\nsignal transduction cross-talk between various environmental 2016\r\nand hormonal signals in regulating plant growth and\r\ndevelopment and stress responses.\r\nNational Women Bioscientist Award from DBT Govt. of India. 2015\r\n