Professor AB Pant is a seasoned toxicologist with over thirty years of active research career. Presently serving as ‘Senior Principal Scientist’ at CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, and also a ‘Professor’ of Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research, an Institution of National Importance set up by the Act of Parliament, Government of India. In the scientific fraternity, Professor Pant is renowned for his elegant research on the application of human stem cells and iPSCs in developmental neurotoxicity and establishing the number of in vitro model systems as an alternative to laboratory animals for biomedical research. He also founded a new discipline of "In-Vitro Toxicology" in the country. He also dedicated himself to fostering contemporary science to Post-Graduate, PhD students, researchers, and university teachers. He is a lead GLP inspector for the Government of India, and also serves as an expert for regulatory bodies, such asBIS, CDSCO, NABL, FSSAI, NGCMA, ICMR, DST, Pharmacovigilance, etc. He has won several awards and honors, including Vigyan Ratna Award-2010 (CST UP); Shakuntala Amir Chand Prize-2007 (ICMR); National Bioscience Award-2012 (DBT); Prof. KT Shetty Memorial Oration Award-2017 (Indian Academy of Neurosciences), Toxicology Promotion Award-2018 (National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad), STOX/ASAW Gold Medal (STOX, India), etc. He has been elected Fellow of Academy of Toxicological Sciences, USA, Society of Toxicology, India, Indian Academy of Neurosciences, Academy of Sciences for Animal Welfare, India, Academy of Environmental Biology India, etc. In view of outstanding credibility in toxicology, Professor Pant has been included as a global toxicologist in the ‘European and United Kingdom Register of Toxicologists’ and has also been conferred the DSc (h. c.) degree by HNB Medical Education University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. He currently serves as Chairman and Member of several National and International Committees/ Boards of Government Institutes and Bodies. He also serves as a member of the editorial board of several reputable journals. Dr Ashish Dwivedi is graduated from CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, India, in the area of Photobiology and Phototoxicology. Thereafter, he enriched himself in the same domain of research as Post-Doctoral Fellow at Israel Institute of Technology, Israel; Colorado University, USA, and Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. Based on his outstanding research experience, he got an opportunity to join back to his parenteral research organization-CSIR-IITR, where he is currently serving as a Scientist in the System Toxicology & Health Risk Assessment Group. In a decade-long research career, Dr Dwivedi has established himself as one among the pioneers in the area of phototoxicity/ photosafety with special reference to the photsafety of therapeutic agents, nanotized phytochemicals, environmental pollutants, etc. Besides the laboratory work, he has also been involved in fostering contemporary science to Post-Graduate, PhD students, researchers, and university teachers. Dr Dwivedi’s research efforts have been rewarding in terms of the quantifiable number of research publications in journals of high repute. He has also edited three books for Springer Nature in the area of Photoprotection, Skin Aging, and Neuroprotection. He is a member of various scientific societies, to name a few are- Society of Toxicology, USA, American Society for Photobiology, USA, Indian Photobiology Society, India, Society of Toxicology, India, etc. Professor Ratan Singh Ray is a Chief Scientist & Head, Photobiology Division at CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, India. He is one of the founders who established a new discipline of Photobiology/ Phototoxicity in the country. His active research career of over three decades in the area of Photobiology made him instrumental as a resource person in the Bureau of Indian Standards for the formulation/ revision of several standards for cosmetics and personal health care products. His research group is credited for creating the complete spectrum of UV-A, UV-B and UV-C radiation falling on the earth's surface at latitude- Longitude 26.8467° N, 80.9462° E for over twenty years. Such dedicated and sustained efforts in creating this database have created immense wealth for the scientific fraternity working in this area of research, industries involved in the production and R & D of cosmetic and personal health care products, and regulatory agencies. He has supervised more than a dozen students for PhD, several post-doctoral fellows and post-graduate students. He is also rendering his intellectual inputs and expertise to various scientific societies and government agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Standards, India, American Society for Photobiology, USA, Indian Photobiology Society, India, Society of Toxicology, India. His research is highly cited in the scientific literature as evidenced by a Google Scholar Score of over 2000 with an H-Index of 28. He is currently coordinating several investigator-driven research grants from different national funding agencies in the country. Dr Anurag Tripathi is working as Principal Scientist in CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research. He did his Ph.D from School of Biotechnology, Banaras Hindu University, on Immunomodulatory effects of Prolactin and Growth hormone on macrophages. His work contributes to an in-depth understanding of the immunomodulatory, immunosuppressive effects of common food additives, drugs and cosmetic ingredients. He has also worked on the tumorigenic potential of mycotoxins and the molecular mechanisms leading to skin cancer. Dr Tripathi has over sixteen years of research experience and published 50 articles in peer reviewed international journals such as Immunology, MolecularImmunology, Molecular Aspects of Medicine, Toxicology Letters, ACS Nano, Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology etc. His publications are well cited with an H-index of 25. He is a life member of Indian Nanoscience Society and serves as an editorial board member in several prestigious international journals such as Journal of Immunology & Serum Biology, SM Journal of Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine, Journal of Toxicology and Forensic cases and Austin Immunology.Dr Atul Kumar Upadhyay received his PhD degree in Life Sciences from National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, in 2015. His primary area of research encompasses around in-depth plant genomic analysis and computer simulations for developing database management systems and bioinformatics tools. He started his teaching career as Assistant Professor at Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, Punjab, India in 2016. Presently, he is serving as Assistant Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology (TIET), Patiala, Punjab, India. His area of expertise is comparative genomics and bioinformatics, computational biology, molecular modeling of biomolecules and drug designing. Based on his research, he has come up with a good number of research publications in national and international journals of high repute. Besides the research publications, he is also edited one book “Bioinformatics for Agriculture: High-throughput approaches” for Springer Nature. He is an author/co-author in several book chapters in his area of expertise. Presently, he is also serving as an editorial member in a few of the good journals of his area of research. Dr Shiv Poojan is currently holding the position of Scientist at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. He is a research graduate from CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, India. His early research was focused on deciphering the mechanistic incites of arsenic-induced developmental toxicity, genetic alteration and carcinogenicity in a mouse stem cell-derived 3D reconstructed model of skin. Then he moved to the National Cancer Center (NCC), South Korea, as a post-doctoral fellow, where he culminated a task of developing the target-specific stable transformations in healthy and cancerous iPSCs to read across the customized changes in epigenetic profiling and genomic sequences, hence could be utilized to identify the drug resistance genes. For the past several years, he has been working on a rare genetic disease epidermolysis bullosa with a specific aim to identify suitable inhibitors to reduce cancer development in the RDEBSCC patients and to understand RDEB squamous cell carcinoma development. In acknowledgment of his outstanding research acumens, he has been awarded ‘Carl Storm International Diversity Fellowship’ at Gordon Research Conference (GRC), Italy (2013), and‘Rambhau Kulkerny Best Scientist Award’ at Indian Association of Cancer Research (2010). He has come up with a good number of research papers in diversified journals of high impact, to name a few are- Nature’s Scientific Reports, Experimental and Molecular Medicine, PLOS-ONE, Mutagenesis, Rheumatology, Cell Biology International, Histology, and Histopathology, etc.
