Profile
Dr. Aashish Ranjan has been working as a Staff Scientist at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi since April 2015. Before joining NIPGR, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Plant Biology, University of California, Davis, USA, where he studied plant development using genomics approaches. He pursued a Ph.D. from the International Graduate School in Genetics and Functional Genomics at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he investigated the light regulation of plant development. He has extensive research experience in plant development and physiology, functional genomics, and molecular breeding as well as advanced molecular biology and biotechnology tools. He has expertise in working with many model species, such as Arabidopsis, tomato, and rice, as well as non-model plant species. His lab at NIPGR is involved in understanding the fundamental mechanisms and applications to increase crop photosynthetic efficiency as well as the crop developmental and physiological responses to changing climatic conditions.
Current Focus Areas
Harnessing natural variation to increase crop photosynthetic efficiency
Understanding the genetic basis of crop developmental responses to environmental changes
Selected Publications
Saini K, Dwivedi A, Ranjan A (2022). High temperature restricts cell division and leaf size by coordination of PIF4 and TCP4 transcription factors. Plant Physiology, 190(4): 2380-2397.
Jathar V, Saini K, Chauhan A, Rani R, Ichihashi Y, Ranjan A (2022). Spatial control of cell division by GA-OsGRF7/8 module in a leaf explains the leaf length variation between cultivated and wild rice. New Phytologist, 234: 867-883.
Mathan J, Singh A, Jathar V, Ranjan A (2021) High photosynthesis rate in two wild rice species is driven by leaf anatomy mediating high Rubisco activity and electron transport rate. Journal of Experimental Botany, 72: 7119-35.
Mathan J, Singh A, Ranjan A (2021). Sucrose transport and metabolism control carbon partitioning between stem and grain in rice. Journal of Experimental Botany, 72: 4355-72.
Mathan J, Bhattacharya J, Ranjan A (2016). Enhancing crop yield via the optimization of plant developmental features. Development, 143: 3283-3294.