Profile
Scientist II (2022-present) : National Institute for Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi Post Doctoral Fellow (2018-2022) : Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Halle, Germany Post Doctoral Fellow (2015-2018) : National Institute for Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi Ph. D. (2008-2015) : National Institute for Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi M. Sc. (2006-2008) : Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India B. Sc. (2003-2006) : Maharaja’s college, Jaipur, India
Current Focus Areas
Helicoverpa armigera (pod borer) is a major issue in chickpea cultivation and causes 40%-50% crop losses despite the use of chemical pesticides. Our group is aiming to understand early signaling events during plant-insect interaction and employ this knowledge to develop insect resistant chickpea lines by genome editing.
Selected Publications
Mielke S, Zimmer M, Meena MK, Dreos R, Stellmach H, Hause B, Voiniciuc C, Gasperini D (2021) Jasmonate biosynthesis arising from altered cell walls is prompted by turgor-driven mechanical compression. Science Advances 7(7):eabf0356
Menna A, Dora S, Sancho-Andrés G, Kashyap A, Meena MK, Sklodowski K, Gasperini D, Coll NS, Sánchez-Rodríguez C (2021) A primary cell wall cellulose-dependent defense mechanism against vascular pathogens revealed by time-resolved dual transcriptomics. BMC biology 19 (1):1-20
Jogawat A, Meena MK, Kundu A, Varma M, Vadassery J (2020) Calcium channel CNGC19 mediates basal defense signaling to regulate colonization by Piriformospora indica in Arabidopsis roots. Journal of Experimental Botany 71(9):2752-2768
Meena MK, Prajapati R, Krishna D, Divakaran K, Pandey Y, Reichelt M, Mathew MK, Boland W, Mithöfer A, Vadassery J (2019) The Ca2+ Channel CNGC19 Regulates Arabidopsis defense against Spodoptera Herbivory. Plant Cell 31(7):1539-1562
Meena MK, Vishwakarma NK, Tripathi V, Chattopadhyay D (2019) CBL-interacting protein kinase 25 contributes to root meristem development. Journal of Experimental Botany 70(1):133-147