Profile
Career Profile: Staff Scientist (2020-Present): National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi, DST-INSPIRE Faculty (2017-2020): National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI), Mohali Postdoctoral Fellow (2012-2016): European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, Germany Ph.D. (2007-2012): National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi Awards & Honors: Start-Up Research Grant from SERB, Govt. of India (2022). Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award from the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) (2019). DST-INSPIRE Faculty award by DST, Govt. of India (2017) NET- JRF by CSIR, Govt. of India (2007).
Current Focus Areas
Advent of CRISPR-Cas9 system has revolutionized the field of high-throughput mutagenesis in plants, as it enables modification of DNA at precise and desired locations. We aim to develop CRISPR-Cas9 mutant population in rice, which would be very useful for identifying novel alleles for varietal release as well as functional genomics.
The rice bran is nutritionally superior compared to white rice. The underlying molecular mechanism of spatial distribution of nutrient in rice grain is not clear, and we aim to decipher it. Furthermore, we aim to increase nutritional value of the white rice and increase the bran stability through genomic modifications.
Selected Publications
Shekhawat PK, Sardar S, Yadav B, Salvi P, Soni P, Ram, H* (2023) Meta-analysis of transcriptomics studies identifies novel attributes and set of genes involved in iron homeostasis in rice. Functional & Integrative Genomics 23, 336. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-023-01265-z
Bansal, S, Sardar, S, Sinha, K, Bhunia R, Katoch M, Sonah H, Deshmukh R, Ram H* (2021) Identification and molecular characterization of rice bran-specific lipases. Plant Cell Reports 40, 1215–1228 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-021-02714-4 (*Corresponding author)
Ram H*, Singh A, Katoch M, Kaur R, Sardar S, Palia S, Satyam R, Sonah S, Deshmukh R, Pandey A, Gupta I, Sharma TR (2021) Dissecting the nutrient partitioning mechanism in rice grain using spatially resolved gene expression profiling. Journal of experimental Botany 72(6) 2212–2230, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/eraa536 (*Corresponding author)
Ram H, Sahadevan S, Caggiano MP, Yu X, Ohno C, Heisler MG (2020) An integrated analysis of cell-type specific gene expression reveals targets of REVOLUTA and KANADI1 in the Arabidopsis shoot apical meristem. PLoS Genetics 16(4): e1008661 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008661
Ram H, Priya P, Jain M, Chattopadhyay S. (2014). Genome-wide DNA binding of GBF1 is modulated by its heterodimerizing protein partners, HY5 and HYH. Molecular Plant 7, 448-51 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mp/sst143