Current responsibilities:

• Genetic Improvement of Senna for the improved sennoside content and herbage yield
• Unraveling the genes involved in the biosynthesis of natural products
• Development and application of genomics tools for improvement of medicinal plants
• Institute building activities
• Guiding post Graduate students

Recent 3 major contributions:

• Collected and characterized 200 germplasm accession of Senna
• Developed transcriptome resources for unraveling the genes involved in the biosynthetic pathway of sennosides
• Developed and standardized a technique for senna hybridization

Recent awards and recognitions:

• Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Agricultural and Allied Sciences (2011) (National Award) instituted by Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi
• Prof. G. Rangaswami Memorial NABS-Best Research Paper Award (2013) instituted by National Academy for Biological Sciences (NABS), Chennai
• Recognized by Anand Agricultural University, Anand for guiding students

Current collaborative activities:

• ICAR-NBPGR, New Delhi

Recent most significant publications:

• Mehta RH, Ponnuchamy M, Kumar J, Reddy NR. (2016) Exploring drought stress-regulated genes in senna (Cassia angustifolia Vahl.): a transcriptomic approach. Funct Integr Genomics. 2016 Oct 5. [Epub ahead of print]
• Nagaraja Reddy R, Mehta RH, Soni PH, Makasana J, Gajbhiye NA, Ponnuchamy M, Jitendra Kumar (2015) Next Generation Sequencing and Transcriptome analysis predicts biosynthetic pathway of sennosides from Senna (Cassia angustifolia Vahl.), a Non-Model plant with potent laxative properties. PLoS ONE 10(6): e0129422. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129422.
• Nagaraja Reddy R, Madhusudhana R, Murali Mohan S, Seetharama N, Patil JV (2014) Detection and validation of stay-green QTL in post-rainy sorghum involving widely adapted cultivar, M35-1 and a popular stay-green genotype B35. BMC Genomics 15:909 (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-909)
• Nagaraja Reddy R, Madhusudhana R, Murali Mohan S, Chakravarthi DVN, Mehtre SP, Seetharama N, Patil JV (2013) Mapping QTL for grain yield and other agronomic traits in post-rainy sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench]. Theoretical and Applied Genetics (DOI 10.1007/s00122-013-2107-8).
• Usha Sree S, Nagaraja Reddy R, Murali Mohan S, Madhusudhana R, Kusum Mathur, Venkatesh Bhat, Sanjay Rathore (2012) Genetic diversity and pathogenic variation in isolates of Exserohilum turcicum causing common leaf blight of sorghum. Indian Phytopathology 65 (4):349-355.
• Nagaraja Reddy R, Madhusudhana R, Murali Mohan S, Chakravarthi DVN, Seetharama N (2012) Characterization, development and mapping of Unigene derived microsatellite markers in sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench]. Molecular Breeding (DOI 10.1007/s11032-011-9571-0).
• Nagaraja Reddy R, Madhusudhana R, Prasanthi M, Srinivas G, Murali Mohan S, Satish K, Seetharama N (2011) Assessment of transferability of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) EST-SSR markers among its wild species and other members of Gramineae family. Indian Journal of Agricultural sciences 81(11):1063-1067. IF: 0.17
• Murali Mohan SM, Madhusudhana R, Mathur K, Chakravarthi, Sanjay Rathore, Nagaraja Reddy R, Satish K, Srinivas G, Sarada Mani N, Seetharama N (2010) Identification of quantitative trait loci associated with resistance to foliar diseases in sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench]. Euphytica 176 (2): 199-211.
• Satish K, Srinivas G, Madhusudhana R, Padmaja PG, Nagaraja Reddy R, Murali Mohan S, Seetharama N (2009) Identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for resistance to shoot fly in sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench]. Theoretical and applied genetics 119(8):1425-1439.
• Murali Mohan S, Madhusudhana R, Kusum Mathur, Howarth CJ, Srinivas G, Satish K, Nagaraja Reddy R, Seetharama N 2009), Co-localization of QTLs for foliar disease resistance in sorghum, Plant Breeding 200(1):1-4.
• Srinivas G, Satish K, Madhusudhana R, Nagaraja Reddy R, Murali Mohan S, Seetharama N (2009) Identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for agronomically important traits and their association with genic-microsatellite markers in sorghum. Theoretical and applied genetics 118:1439-1454.
• Nagaraja Reddy R, Murali Mohan S, Madhusudhana R, Umakanth AV, Satish K, Srinivas G (2008) Inheritance of morphological characters in sorghum. Journal of SAT Agricultural Research 6: 1- 6.
• Srinivas G, Satish K, Murali Mohan S, Nagaraja Reddy R, Madhusudhana R, Balakrishna D, Venkatesh Bhat B, Howarth CJ, Seetharama N(2008) Development of genic-microsatellite markers for sorghum staygreen QTL using a comparative genomic approach with rice. Theoretical and applied genetics 117(2) 283- 296.

Other professional activities:

• Life member-Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Association of India (MAPAI), Anand, India
• Life member-Indian Society of Genetic and Plant Breeding (ISGPB), New Delhi, India
• Life member-Indian Society of Plant Breeder’s (ISPB), Coimbatore, India
• Life member-National Academy of Biological Sciences (NABS), Chennai, India
• Life member-International Society for Noni Science

Certified that above facts are correct and I have repeatedly edited and verified to my full satisfaction.

.................................................................................................Dr. R. Nagaraja Reddy

Last Updated on 25-08-2015