Dr. Manoj Kumar
Division, ICAR- Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology, India
Dr. Manoj Kumar serves as a Scientist at the ICAR – Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology, located in Mumbai. He attained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from ICAR – Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi. Dr. Kumar has been honored with the esteemed 'Prime Minister Fellowship Award' and the 'ICAR – IARI Gold Medal' in recognition of his exceptional research during his doctoral studies. Dr. Kumar was also awarded the 'International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) Twitter Contest Award 2022' in the cotton research category during the commemoration of World Cotton Day 2022 from the ICAC. In recognition of his substantial contributions to the fields of agriculture and cotton, including its by-products, Dr. Kumar was honored with the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) – Young Scientist Award for the year 2023. During his involvement in an externally funded project from the Science for Equity, Empowerment, and Development (SEED), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, he successfully achieved ultra-low gossypol protein from cottonseed. Recently, Dr. Kumar was deputed to East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, USA for CRISPR/Cas Technology training aimed at developing ultra-low gossypol cottonseeds, funded by DST under SERB International Research Experience scheme. He was also selected as one of the candidates for the ICAC-Research Associate Program 2023. He has published over 200 articles in peer-reviewed international journals and has been ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide, according to the list released by Stanford University in collaboration with Elsevier.