Dr. Nilofer Ali
Institute of Microbial Technology, CSIR IHBT, IFTM University, ICAR CPRI
0000-0002-9576-8594
About
Currently, I am working as a National Postdoctoral Fellow (ANRF-NPDF) at CSIR-IMTECH, Chandigarh, India. I am investigating plant-derived pigments as natural photo-responsive photosensitizers in antimicrobial photodynamic therapy against Drug-Resistant Pathogens.
My PhD thesis research focused on how morpho-phenotypic and biochemical changes in plants are affected by abiotic stress, how plants can change and reprogram their development, and the effects of beneficial microbes on crop production. I integrate concepts from evolution, genetics, and genomics to uncover eco-evolutionary trajectories of plant productivity and microbiome interactions.
Before joining a PhD Program, I worked on late blight in potato, where I learned molecular techniques and developed a dataset of SSR and ISSR markers for interspecific potato somatic hybrids with high resistance to late blight. Moreover, I learned to use aeroponics to investigate nitrogen biology in Potatoes across different nitrogen regimes and to characterize gene expression profiles associated with NUE via RNA sequencing. I have a sound knowledge of plant molecular biology (morpho-physiology, biochemical and molecular markers of plants, gene cloning, and transcriptomics), microbiology (isolation of bacterial and fungal genomic DNA/RNA and amplifying targeted regions through Sanger sequencing, whole genome sequencing and metagenomics analysis ).
I am deeply interested in employing advanced multi-omics techniques to gain a comprehensive understanding of plant health and crop yield.
Employment
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Institute of Microbial Technology National Postdoctoral Fellow2025 - Present
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CSIR IHBT Project Associate II2022 - 2023
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CSIR IHBT Project Associate II2021 - 2022
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CSIR IHBT Project Assistant II2018 - 2019
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ICAR CPRI Junior Research Fellow2013 - 2017
Education
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CSIR IHBT Ph.D2020 - 2024
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IFTM University MSC2011 - 2013
Projects & Funding
Projects & funding information is unavailable.
Publications (18)
- St. John's wort root-associated beneficial bacteria with vermicompost augment specialized metabolites without penalizing biomass yield by improving photosynthesis and soil microbial properties Save
- PGPR isolated from hot spring imparts resilience to drought stress in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Save
- PGPR mediated enhancement of saffron corm production in non-traditional area of Himachal Pradesh, India Save
- Temperature-induced modulation of stress-tolerant PGP genes bioprospected from Bacillus sp. IHBT-705 associated with saffron (Crocus sativus) rhizosphere: A natural -treasure trove of microbial biostimulants Save
- Physiological and molecular insight of microbial biostimulants for sustainable agriculture Save
- Cleaner production technologies for the amelioration of soil health, biomass and secondary metabolites in Ocimum basilicum L. under Indian Western Himalaya Save
- Physiological and genome-wide RNA-sequencing analyses identify candidate genes in a nitrogen-use efficient potato cv. Kufri Gaurav Save
- Analysis of allelic variation in wild potato (Solanum) species by simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers Save
- Cloning and sequence variation analysis of candidate genes involved in nitrogen metabolism in potato (Solanum tuberosum) Save
- Development of microsatellite markers set for identification of Indian potato varieties Save