Dr. C. Viswanathan is Joint Director (Research) and Principal Scientist in Indian Agriculture Research Institute. Dr Viswanathan done his Ph.D (Field of Specialisation : Abiotic stress response of Plants) from Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi.

Awards / Recognitions / Fellowship (Upto Five) :

1. Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, NAAS, New Delhi
2. Fellow of Indian Society for Plant Physiology, IJPP, New Delhi
3. Jawaharlal Nehru Award for best post-graduate agricultural research (2001), ICAR, New Delhi
4. J.J. Chinoy Gold Medal, 2012, Indian Society for Plant Physiology, New Delhi
5. BOYSCAST Fellowship, 2001, DST, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India

Patent / Technologies / Methodologies / System etc. (Upto Five) :

1. Plant Phenomics: Contributed to the establishment of automated high throughput Plant Phenomics Facility and generation of more than 36 million image phenome data. Identified genotypes of rice and wheat with high WUE & NUE
2. ABA signalling pathway: Contributed to the elucidation of ABA-Receptors and the core-components of the ABA signalling pathway of stress response. Also contributed to the identification synthetic ligands and orthogonal receptor engineering for stress manag
3. MicroRNA biogenesis pathway: Contributed to the identification and elucidation of the role of two novel proteins namely SICKLE1 and STABILIZED1 involved in microRNA biosynthesis and abiotic stress tolerance in Arabidopsis.
4. Cold stress signalling pathway: Inducer of CBF Expression 1 (ICE1) was discovered as regulator of cold tolerance in Arabidopsis. This led to the discovery of ICE1 orthologs from different plant species and its use for engineering stress tolerance
5. Genes and promoters cloned: Brassica napus group 4 LEA gene and promoter, Brassica carinata Zinc Finger TF (BcZF1), Arabidopsis & Rice ABA Receptors, Rice ICE1, tomato CYC-B promoter, Development of rice dst gene mutant by CRISPR-Cas9

Publications (Top 10 Publications having NAAS rating 6 and above with first or corresponding author only) :           

1. ABA receptor OsPYL6 confers drought tolerance to indica rice through dehydration avoidance and tolerance mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Botany DOI: 10.1093/jxb/eraa509
2. Overexpression of ABA Receptor PYL10 gene confers drought and cold tolerance to indica rice. Frontiers in Plant Science 10:1488.doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.01488
3. Genome-wide identification and characterization of ABA receptor PYL gene family in rice. BMC Genomics 21:676 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-07083-y
4. Auxin protects spikelet fertility and grain yield under drought and heat stresses in rice. Environmental and Experimental Botany 150: 9-24
5. Arabidopsis proline-rich protein important for development and abiotic stress tolerance is involved in microRNA biogenesis. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences USA 109: 18198-18203
6. Fujii H*, Chinnusamy V*, Rodrigues A, Rubio S, Antoni R, Park SY, Cutler SR, Sheen J, Rodriguez PL, Zhu JK. 2009. In vitro reconstitution of an abscisic acid signalling pathway. Nature 462: 660-664 (*Joint First Authors)
7. Chinnusamy V, Zhu JK. 2009. Epigenetic regulation of stress responses in plants. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 12: 133-139
8. Chinnusamy V, Gong Z, Zhu JK. 2008. ABA-mediated epigenetic processes in plant development and stress responses. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology 50: 1187-1195
9. Chinnusamy V, Zhu J, Zhu JK. 2007. Cold stress regulation of gene expression plants. Trends in Plant Science 12: 444-451
10. Chinnusamy V, Ohta M, Kanrar S, Lee B.-h, Hong X, Agarwal M, Zhu JK. 2003. ICE1, a regulator of cold induced transcriptome and freezing tolerance in Arabidopsis. Genes and Development 17: 1043-1054