Rajeev Kumar Varshney


Rajeev Kumar Varshney is an agricultural scientist with expertise in genetics, genomics, molecular breeding and capacity building. He has more than 20 years of research experience in the area of international agriculture. He is currently working as global Research Program Director–Genetic Gains that includes several units viz. Genebank, Pre-Breeding, Cell, Molecular Biology & Genetic Engineering, Genomics & Trait Discovery, Forward Breeding, Seed Systems and Biotechnology- ESA, and Sequencing and Informatics Unit at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, headquartered at Patancheru, India. He is Founding Director for the Center of Excellence in Genomics & Systems Biology at ICRISAT and Adjunct Professor with several universities including Winthrop Research Professor with The University of Western Australia, West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, University of Hyderabad, Chaudhary Charan Singh University and Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University.
Before heading the Research Program Genetic Gains, he served/serving ICRISAT in various capacities including Research Program Director- Grain Legumes, Principal Scientist- Applied Genomics, Senior Scientist. He also worked with CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme, hosted at CIMMYT, Mexico as Theme Leader - Comparative and Applied Genomics from 2007-2013.
Varshney has research experience in the area of crop genomics and molecular breeding. He has interest in development and application of genomic tools and strategies for applied breeding of the legume and cereal crops of the semi-arid tropics.

Education and Professional career

Varshney received his bachelor's degree in Botany and master's degree in Botany from the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh in 1993 and 1995, respectively. He then joined the laboratory of Professor P K Gupta at Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut and earned doctoral degree in 2001 in Agricultural Botany based on work done on a Wheat Biotechnology Project sponsored by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
After receiving PhD degree, Varshney took up an assignment of Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter in 2001 at :de:Leibniz-Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung|Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics & Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben, Germany. He worked there for five years in the area of structural and functional genomics of barley and comparative genomics of cereals. He then accepted the assignment of Senior Scientist for Applied Genomics at ICRISAT in late 2005. While working at ICRISAT, he took up a half time appointment with Generation Challenge Programme, hosted at CGIAR CIMMYT, as SubProgramme Leader for SubProgramme 2- Genomics towards Gene Discovery in 2007. With an objective to accelerate genomics research in dryland crops, he as a Founding Director established Center of Excellence in Genomics in 2007, with support from Department of Biotechnology Government of India. Later in 2017, this center transformed into Center of Excellence in Genomics & Systems Biology. He was promoted to the position of Principal Scientist at ICRISAT in 2008. He had a dual appointment with ICRISAT as Principal Scientist and GCP as SubProgramme Leader from 2007- 2013. In 2010, he was appointed as Adjunct Professor - Plant Biology in The University of Western Australia. In 2012, he was conferred Visiting Professorship at Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China and Adjunct Professorship at Beijing Genomics Institute Hong Kong. In August 2013, he assumed responsibilities as Research Program Director, Grain Legumes at ICRISAT and since February 2016, Varshney is serving ICRISAT as Global Research Program Director, Genetic Gains.

Fellowships

Based on his research contribution, he has received several awards/ fellowships such as:
Varshney has made scientific contributions including following:
Varshney has served/ serving Editorial Board of several journals like , Theoretical and Applied Genetics, Molecular Genetics & Genomics, Plant Breeding, , , , BMC Plant Biology, BMC Genetics, , , , , etc. He has been a Guest Editor for Special Issue for several journals like , , , , , , etc.
Varshney has served/serving Steering Committee/ Organizing Committee/ Programme Committee for several international conferences including FAO Conference on Application of Biotechnologies in Developing Countries, . As a Chair, Varshney organized several conferences including , five editions of and conferences.
Varshney has delivered invited presentations in several high-level meetings related to international agricultural research including: G8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture on , organized by US and UK Governments in the World Bank , brainstorming session on Digital Revolution for Agriculture at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in , brainstorming session on DNA Fingerprinting for Impact Assessment, BMGF, USA, FAO's international conference on Agricultural Biotechnology in Developing Countries in Mexico, FAO's Regional Conference on Agricultural Bio technologies in Sustainable Foods Systems and Nutrition , Scientific Advisory Committee Meeting on Article 17 of International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food & Agriculture of United Nations' FAO, Quality of Research Workshop organized by CGIAR, Science Forum of CGIAR in Wageningen, The Netherlands. While serving international agriculture in developing countries, Varshney had privilege to meet several high profile and influential personalities from science, society and politics that includes Dr Norman Borlaug, Noble Laureate, Mr Bill Gates, Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Mr Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India.

Research projects and grants

Varshney's research has been funded by research grants from several international funding agencies like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States Agency for International Development, , US National Science Foundation, and leading Indian funding organizations like Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Department of Biotechnology, and Department of Science and Technology.

Research publications

Rajeev has authored and published more than 350 in high impact research journals. Some of these journals include Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Genetics, , Genome Biology, Trends in Plant Science, Current Opinion in Plant Biology, Trends in Biotechnology, , DNA Research, , , , Theoretical and Applied Genetics, Plant Breeding, etc. See .

List of Books

Varshney has edited/ co-edited several books like , , , , , , two volumes of Genomics-Assisted Crop Improvement namely , , , , , , .