Engineering Disease Resistance in Plants using CRISPR-Cas (PDF)

Dr. Zulqurnain Khan is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology (IPBB), MNS University of Agriculture, Multan (MNSUAM), in Multan, Pakistan. Dr. Khan earned his PhD in Biotechnology in 2017 from the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF) in Pakistan. He is Pakistan's first PhD candidate, with a thesis on genome editing. He has been involved in genome editing since 2012. His study focuses on employing genome editing techniques (TALEs, TALENs, Cas9, dCas9, and multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9) in model plants and cotton to develop resistance to begomoviruses. He is also employing CRISPR/Cas9 technology to enhance cereal crop genetics for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. He has edited two books on genome editing, one book on cotton breeding, and has authored over twenty book chapters. In addition, he has several review and research papers published in international peer-reviewed journals. Dr Khan was awarded an IRSIP scholarship by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan and worked as a visiting researcher at Professor Caixia Gao's group at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in Beijing, China. Since 2018, Dr. Khan has been teaching several courses in biotechnology, breeding, molecular biology, genetics, and genome editing.