Faculty School of Applied Chemistry & Basic Sciences

Dr. Madhulika Esther Prasad did her Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Graphic Era deemed to be University, Dehradun, with a Canadian research work experience of six years prior to Ph.D. Her Ph.D. was entitled as â??Characterization of Nutritional & Genetic Diversity in Millets of Uttarakhandâ?�, and she received a DST Women Scientist-A position with a research grant of 23 Lakhs from the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, as Principal Investigator (PI). She was one of the five scientists in the state of Uttarakhand who received this grant in the year of 2018-19. She completed her Research-based Masters from Dalhousie University, Canada, with a prestigious NSERC fellowship. Her Ph.D. and DST research include work on the internationally acclaimed millet grain. She has characterized the biodiversity of millets growing in the high-altitude regions of Uttarakhand to identify cultivars with higher levels of protein, fat, minerals and amylose, the latter being extremely beneficial to patients suffering from type 2 diabetes, which is of high importance. This research has also won her two awards as Best Woman Researcher (2021), and Young Researcher (2020) in national and international conferences. Her previous research work has also identified the role of XBAT32, a novel E3 ligase, in the ethylene biosynthesis pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana. Likewise, her work in E.Coli identified the essential role of a novel C-terminal region in the CesT chaperone protein for bacterial toxin secretion. Part of her work is published in high-impact journals such as Plant Physiology (Impact factor-6.8), Journal of Bacteriology (Impact factor-5.4) and Plant Signalling & Behaviour (Impact factor-2.2). She has published more than 15 research papers, and presented talks at international conferences,