Dr. Rakesh Kumar

Dr. Rakesh Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Life Sciences, School of Life Sciences, at the Central University of Karnataka, where he has served as Department Coordinator and Nodal Officer for the COVID-19 Laboratory. He earned his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Botany from Banaras Hindu University, followed by an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Plant Sciences from the University of Hyderabad. Prior to his current role, Dr. Kumar completed advanced post-doctoral research at ICRISAT and served as a Research Associate at the Repository of Tomato Genomics Resources (RTGR). His research integrates functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, genome editing, and molecular translational pharmacology. Dr. Kumar investigates plant developmental biology, host-pathogen interactions, seed dormancy, abiotic stress responses, and fruit senescence, alongside the identification of bioactive botanical compounds for medicinal and therapeutic applications. Notable milestones include discovering novel regulatory alleles controlling fruit shelf life and fresh seed dormancy, as well as advancing high-throughput analytical workflows for plant tissue characterization. Dr. Kumar serves as an Editor for Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio) and guest editor for leading scientific journals. He has authored over 28 peer-reviewed research articles and 17 book chapters, edited 4 international volumes with Springer Nature and IOP Publishing, and leads competitive research grants as Principal Investigator.