A common approach to understanding the functional repertoire of a genome is through functional genomics. With systems biology burgeoning, bioinformatics has grown to a larger extent for plant genomes where several applications in the form of protein-protein interactions (PPI) are used to predict the function of proteins. With plant genes evolutionarily conserved, the science of bioinformatics in agriculture has caught interest with myriad of applications taken from bench side to in silico studies. A multitude of technologies in the form of gene analysis, biochemical pathways and molecular techniques have been exploited to an extent that they consume less time and have been cost-effective to use. As genomes are being sequenced, there is an increased amount of expression data being generated from time to time matching the need to link the expression profiles and phenotypic variation to the underlying genomic variation. This would allow us to identify candidate genes and understand the molecular basis/phenotypic variation of traits. While many bioinformatics methods like expression and whole genome sequence data of organisms in biological databases have been used in plants, we felt a common reference showcasing the reviews for such analysis is wanting. We envisage that this dearth would be facilitated in the form of this Springer book on Agricultural Bioinformatics. We thank all the authors and the publishers Springer, Germany for providing us an opportunity to review the bioinformatics works that the authors have carried in the recent past and hope the readers would find this book attention grabbing.
Dr. P. B. Kavi Kishor is currently working as Emeritus Professor at the Department of Genetics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He has 38 years of teaching, research and administrative experience. Published 160 papers including book chapters, produced 25 Ph.D.s and authored 5 books. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and also National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Recipient of several gold medals, winner of Prof. Hiralal Chakravarthy Award from the ISCA, and the best teacher award from the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Received Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship from USA, Visiting Scientist Fellowship from Emory University, Atlanta, USA, Visiting Scientist Fellowship from Linkoping University, Sweden, and from Leibniz-Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben, Germany.
Dr. Rajib Bandopadhyay is working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India for thelast eight years. He did his PhD in Botany (Plant Molecular Biology) in 2004 from the University of Calcutta. He did his post-doctoral research work in Crop Biotechnology in India as well as in South Korea and USA. He has teaching experiences at the undergraduate and post graduate level in the field of Agriculture Biotechnology and also in Bioinformatics. Dr Bandopadhyay is BOYSCAST fellowship recipient from DST, Government of India in 2007. He also participated in Southern Ocean Expedition in 2011. He has published more than 47 research papers in journals of international repute and authored a number of reviews, book chapters and manuals.
Dr. Prashanth Suravajhala is a Post-Doctoral Scientist and a virtual entrepreneur who founded Bioclues.org in 2005. He is also serving as an Associate Director of Bioinformatics.org, and has wide interests in lieu of Functional Genomics and Systems Biology of Hypothetical Proteins in Human, specifically targeted to mitochondria. He loves mentoring undergraduates who want to pursue Bioinformatics. Dr. Suravajhala has completed his PhD from Aalborg Universitet, Denmark. He has published 20 papers in international peer reviewed journals.
