Dr. Pramod Kandoth earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and his M.Sc. from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. His research interests are broadly in understanding plants’ interaction with their environment. His postdoctoral work at the University of South Carolina focused on the role of MAP kinases in the systemin-mediated defense signaling to insects. He demonstrated the essential role of these kinases of plants in the fight against insects. He continued his work on plant defense mechanisms at the University of Missouri to understand soybean resistance to soybean cyst nematode (SCN), the most economically important pathogen of soybean in the United States. His significant achievement in this work includes cloning and functional characterization of Rhg4 and Rhg1a genes, the first known genes that majorly contribute to soybean resistance to SCN. In 2017, he moved to India with the prestigious Ramalingaswami Fellowship from the Department of Biotechnology Government of India and joined the National Agri-food Biotechnology Institute (NABI), Mohali. He handled two projects at NABI funded by DST-SERB and DBT. At NABI, he used a genome editing approach to develop nutritionally safe Lathyrus, a legume known for its climate-resilient attributes. He also works on understanding the role of endoplasmic reticulum pathways of plants in the biotic and abiotic stress responses. He joined CUK as an associate professor in 2022 and will continue with these projects at CUK, Kasaragod. He has excellent publications in Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature communications, and Plant Physiology, to name a few.