Advances in Rice Research for Abiotic Stress Tolerance

Mirza Hasanuzzaman is a professor of agronomy at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He received his PhD from the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences. Later, he completed his postdoctoral research in the Center of Molecular Biosciences (COMB), University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan. Subsequently, he became an adjunct senior researcher at the University of Tasmania with an Australian government’s Endeavour Research Fellowship. Over his career he has mentored numerous master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral researchers and has published widely on plant physiology, plant stress responses, and environmental challenges affecting plant species, including authored and edited books and book chapters. He serves as an editor and reviewer for many peer-reviewed international journals and was a recipient of the Publons Peer Review Awards (2017, 2018, and 2019). He is an active member of numerous professional societies and holds office as acting general secretary of the Bangladesh JSPS Alumni Association and as publication secretary of both the Bangladesh Society of Agronomy and the Weed Science Society of Bangladesh. His honors include the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Young Scientist Award (2014), the University Grants Commission (UGC) Gold Medal (2018), the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS) Gold Medal Award (Senior Group, 2022), the Global Network of Bangladeshi Biotechnologists (GNOBB) Award (2021), and the Society for Plant Research Young Scientist Award (Agriculture, 2023). He is a fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS), the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the Royal Society of Biology, and the International Society of Environmental Botanists, and a foreign fellow of the Society for Science of Climate Change and Sustainable Environment. Masayuki Fujita is a former professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, Kagawa University, Kagawa, Japan. He received his BSc in chemistry from Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, and his MAgr and PhD in plant biochemistry from Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan. His research interests include physiological, biochemical, and molecular biological responses based on secondary metabolism in plants under various abiotic and biotic stresses; phytoalexins, cytochrome P450, glutathione S-transferase, and phytochelatins; and redox reactions and antioxidants. In the last decade, his work has focused on oxidative stress and antioxidant defense in plants under environmental stress. His group investigates the role of various exogenous protectants in enhancing antioxidant defense and methylglyoxal detoxification systems in plants. He has supervised numerous master's and doctoral students and has authored many publications in journals and books, as well as edited several books. Kamrun Nahar is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Botany at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She received her PhD in environmental stress physiology of plants in 2016 from the United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Ehime University, Japan, on a Japanese Government (MEXT) scholarship. Dr. Nahar has been engaged in research on field crops, with an emphasis on stress physiology, since 2006. She has completed several research projects and is currently conducting research funded by the Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University Research System and the Ministry of Science and Technology (Bangladesh). She supervises master's students. Dr. Nahar has published numerous articles and book chapters on plant physiology and environmental stresses with publishers including Springer, Elsevier, CRC Press, and Wiley. She is involved in editorial activities and serves as a reviewer for international journals. She is an active member of numerous professional societies. She has attended and presented papers and posters at national and international conferences in several countries. Jiban Krishna Biswas is the former director general of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), where he devoted his entire career as a rice scientist. He was an IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) fellow and a JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) fellow during his PhD and postdoctoral research, respectively. As a plant physiologist, he worked closely with colleagues to develop rice varieties for both favorable and unfavorable ecosystems. He has published numerous articles in national and international journals and several books on rice, climate change, and the history of rice research. He was the chief editor of the Bangladesh Rice Journal, a regular publication of BRRI.

• 1. Managing abiotic stresses in rice agriculture to achieve sustainable food security: the Bangladesh dilemma2. Growth and morphological alterations of rice under major abiotic stresses3. Effects of salinity on rice and rice weeds: short- and long-term adaptation strategies and weed management.4. Drought stress and its management in rice: mechanisms, impacts, and adaptive strategies5. Hotter climates, smarter rice: coping with heat stress through adaptive reprogramming and tolerance6. Coping with cold: how rice responds and adapts7. Flooding stress in rice under climate change: physiological responses and tolerance mechanisms8. Metal and metalloid toxicity in rice: stress responses and mitigation strategies9. Aluminum sensitivity in rice: molecular insights into tolerance, with reference to transcriptional and epigenetic regulation10. Strategies to reduce arsenic stress in rice: physiological, biochemical, and molecular perspectives11. Abiotic stress-induced oxidative stress in rice: mechanisms and mitigation strategies12. Engineering abiotic stress tolerance by modulating antioxidant defense systems13. Harnessing biostimulants to mitigate salt stress damage in rice14. Enhancing rice resilience to abiotic stress: the role of osmolytes15. The role of biofertilizers in sustainable rice production under different abiotic stresses16. Agronomic approaches to improve rice production under abiotic stress17. Nanoparticles as emerging tools for enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in rice18. Nano-enabled biochar composites and native fungal symbionts for arsenic immobilization in anaerobic flooded deltaic rice soils19. Molecular tools and strategies to improve abiotic stress resilience in rice: recent progress and future directions20. Proteomics and posttranslational modifications of heat stress-associated proteins in rice21. Developing rice tolerance to abiotic stress through gene editing technologies22. Biotechnology for enhancing rice tolerance to abiotic stress23. From conventional breeding to gene editing: advances in biotechnological strategies for improving abiotic stress tolerance in rice24. Strategies for salt stress tolerance in rice: breeding to genome editing25. Climate-resilient rice crop improvement using CRISPR–Cas technology26. Epigenetic modulation of FKBP12-dependent pathways in drought-induced oxidative stress resilience in upland rice genotypes27. Plant probiotic bacteria enhance rice tolerance to abiotic stresses28. Advances in the application of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for abiotic stress tolerance in rice29. Climate change and socioeconomic challenges in rice production30. Phytohormone-mediated improvement of salt stress tolerance in rice31. Seed priming in rice: a promising tool for enhancing abiotic stress tolerance