I have studied legumes for over 25 years starting with my PhD at the University of Guelph. After sequential post-docs in Krzysztof Szczygłowski and Michael Udvardi's lab, I joined the John Innes Centre in the UK as a David Phillips fellow. I am current a professor at the CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science (CEMPS) in Shanghai, China as part of CEPAMS, a joint initiative between JIC and CAS. The aim of my research is to understand how beneficial microbes, particularly rhizobia and arbuscular mycorrhiza, interact with legumes. My research topics include plant-host communication, mechanisms of intracellular infection, the role of nitrate in nodulation, and the how the host establishes the conditions for nitrogen fixation in nodules.

Catalina I. Pislariu is an Associate Professor of Biology at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. She obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of North Texas, MS in Pharmacognosy from Ghent University, and BS in Biology from the University of Bucharest. She completed her postdoctoral training with Prof. Michael Udvardi at Noble Research Institute in Ardmore, OK. Her lab investigates molecular mechanisms of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in the model legume Medicago truncatula and its symbiont Sinorhizobium sp., with specific focus on host-strain compatibility. She is the recipient of the US National Science Foundation Career Award in 2022.

Professor Maitrayee DasGupta is from Department of Biochemistry, University of Calcutta. Her research interest is probing the molecular innovations that drove the origin of Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation. Her important contributions are as follows :-(i) Demonstrating that sense antisense pairs of LncRNA ENOD40 evolved exclusively within legumes (ii) Demonstrating the role of deconjugation of auxin conjugate IAA-asp and recruitment of a homeodomain TF WOX5 during nodule organogenesis (iii) understanding the role of SYMRKs. In collaboration with a French and UK team She also highlighted the differentially expressed genes between crack entry and the infection thread supported legumes and also demonstrated that the crack entry legume Arachis has a vestigial pathway to support NOD independent symbiosis. She is a member of all 3 prestigious Academies (FNA, FNASc, FASc) in India and is a JC Bose National Fellow Firoz Molla, pursuing PhD under the supervision of Prof. Maitrayee DasGupta. His research interest is understanding nodule organogenesis in model legume M.truncatula. He is working on cre1 mutant and found that sugar signaling restored symbiosis in cre1. He showed that, apart from auxin transport and biosynthesis, auxin deconjugation mediated by IAR33 is an important contributor of auxin signalling during nodule inception. Now he is working on the role of WOX5 in nodule organogenesis and found the molecular basis for the functional difference of WOX5 from determinate and indeterminate legumes. He presented this work at Frontiers in Modern Biology (FIMB) is the flagship symposium organized by the Department of Biological Sciences, IISER Kolkata and at the 14th European Nitrogen Fixation Conference (ENFC), Naples, Italy. Anindya Kundu completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Maitrayee DasGupta. He worked on understanding cytokinin signalling pathway in crack entry legume Arachis hypogaea. He characterized the MtCRE1/LjHK1 ortholog in Arachis hypogaea and uncovered the role of this receptor during progression of symbiosis in Arachis-Bradyrhizobial symbiosis. At the end of his PhD he observed that sucrose signalling could rescue nod- phenotype of cytokinin perception mutant (cre1) of Medicago truncatula. Now he is working as a postdoctoral fellow at The National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), Cambridge. His research interest is uncovering auxin signalling in actinorhizal symbiosis.

Brett Ferguson leads the Integrative Legume Research Group, in the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, at The University of Queensland, Australia. His research focuses on gene and signal discovery in legumes, with an emphasis on understanding molecular signalling interactions that orchestrate plant development. His group uses modern biotechnology approaches, such as genetic transformation and genome editing (e.g. CRISPR), to functionally characterise genes and molecular networks of interest.

Dr. Udvardi ihas contributed to our understanding of symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes, especially of transport and metabolism in root nodules, using biochemical, molecular, genetic, and genomic methods. Currently, his group focusses on the development of pan-genomic resources to accelerate breeding of tropical pulses, including mungbean and pigeonpea. Dr. Udvardi has published over 200 papers in refereed scientific journals. He was Elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2012 for his contributions to our understanding of legume biology, especially symbiotic nitrogen fixation.