Prasun Kumar is presently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Yeungnam University, Republic of Korea. He holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, India. His main areas of research are biopolymers, microbial biodiversity, bioenergy, microbial biofilms, quorum sensing, quorum quenching, and genomics. He has over seven years of experience in applied microbiological research including over 2 years postdoctoral research experience as BK-21 plus fellow at Chungbuk National University, Republic of Korea. His research work is oriented towards valorization of lignocellulosic biowastes into value-added products and antibiofilm compounds. To his credits, there are over 29 articles in various peer-reviewed SCI journals including Trends in Microbiology, Biotechnology Advances, and Bioresource Technology. To date, his work has fetched decent citations with an h index of 24 and an i10 index of 33. He has been contributing to scientific society by actively reviewing articles for more than 32 SCI journals and was awarded the peer review award by Publons in the year 2018. He serves as the editorial board member of few international journals and also worked as the guest editor for the journals, namely ‘Polymers’ and ‘Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology’.
Vijay Kothari is a microbiologist. His primary research interest is AMR (antimicrobial resistance). His group is actively involved in investigating antimicrobial/ anti-virulence potential of natural products as well as synthetic compounds. In recent past, his lab has extensively investigated the anti-pathogenic activity of various traditional medicine formulations e.g. Panchvalkal, Panchgavya, Triphala, etc. against different antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains including the wound-infective species. His lab was awarded SRISTI-DBT-BIRAC Appreciation Award for validation of anti-infective potential of a traditional polyherbal formulation- Herboheal. He has also been awarded two AIMS (Artificial Intelligence Molecular Screen) award projects by Atomwise Inc., USA for identifying novel anti-infective leads. Dr. Kothari has also contributed substantially to the field as an active editor and reviewer, and has been conferred the Sentinel of Science award by Publons in 2016 recognizing his contribution as a peer reviewer.
