Brief Profile
Dr. Jasmine M. Shah joined the Central University of Kerala as a DST INSPIRE Faculty on April 9, 2012, and she subsequently continued as a regular Assistant Professor from September 25, 2013 onwards. Dr. Shah is a ‘Fellow’ of the ‘Kerala Academy of Sciences’. She is also serving as the Joint Director of ‘Kasaragod Botanical Garden and Research Centre (KBGRC)’, and Nodal officer for farming at the Central University of Kerala.
Dr. Shah did her B.Sc. in Botany and M.Sc. in Genetics and Plant Breeding from the University of Kerala, INDIA. Her Ph.D. (in Biotechnology) was from Madurai Kamaraj University, INDIA and post-doctorate from the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology - Madras (IIT-M), INDIA.
Dr. Shah is a recipient of many awards and fellowships such as the prestigious DST INSPIRE Faculty fellowship, DBT Research Associateship, IIT-M post-doctoral fellowship, CSIR Junior/Senior Research Fellowships and, Women Achiever of the Year Award of CUK (2023). She has received research funding summing to about 1.8 Crore, from various funding agencies. She has many research publications in National and International, peer-reviewed Journals. She has published about 26 research articles (first author in nine and corresponding author in 20), one monograph and two book chapters. She has guided six PhD students. Her group is currently involved in research on plant-microbe interaction, especially the host epigenetic responses. Her group was the first to report that the promoters of plant DNA repair genes exhibited epigenetic memory, which lasted up to three generations. One student has completed PhD and five have submitted their PhD thesis, under her guidance.
Dr. Shah is involved in teaching subjects such as Genetics, Cell and Molecular Biology and, Plant Biotechnology and Plant Genetic Engineering for the M.Sc. Botany students.
Recent and Major Publications
- Doddavarapu D., Lata C., Shah J.M.,"Epigenetic regulation influenced by soil microbiota and nutrients: paving road to epigenome editing in plants.",Biochimica et Biophysica Acta,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbagen.2024.130580
- Nivya V.M. and Shah J.M.,"Standardization of reference genes for real-time PCR analysis of Vigna radiata L. under Agrobacterium tumefaciens infection.",Journal of Applied Biology and Biotechnology,Journal of Applied Biology and Biotechnology
- Amritha P.P., Anjitha R., Sruthi. B., Anilkumar, M., Shah J.M.,"Computational analysis of regulation and expression of plant DNA repair genes under various abiotic stresses reveals a stochastic correlation between",Australian Journal of Crop Science,19:950-958.
- Amritha P.P. and Shah J.M.,"Essential role of the BRCA2B gene in somatic homologous recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana.",BioTechnologia,104:371-380.
- Yamuna K.T., Areekan A.H. and Shah J.M.,"Identification of a suitable method of inoculation for reducing background effect in mock‑inoculated controls during gene expression studies in Arabidopsis thaliana.",Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants,29:1619-1632.
- Ajith T.G, and Shah J.M.,"In-silico promoter analysis of MSP1 gene co-expressing network in rice.",Journal of Cytology and Genetics,24: 67-81.
- Nivya V.M. and Shah J.M.,"Recalcitrance to transformation, a hindrance for genome editing of legumes.",Frontiers in Genome Editing,5:1247815.
- Joseph J.T. and Shah J.M.,"Biotic stress-induced epigenetic changes and transgenerational memory in plants.",Biologia,77:2007-2021
- Joseph J.T, Ajith T.G, and Shah J.M.,"In silico analysis and comparison of pathogenesis-related transcription factor binding sites in Arabidopsis DNA repair gene promoters",Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, India Section B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.o,91:929-945
- Yoosuf N.A. and Shah J.M.,"Genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of food additives",Journal of Cytology and Genetics,22:67-82
- Shah J.M.,"Epimutations and mutations, nurturing phenotypic diversity.",Genetica,https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-021-00124-8
- Amritha P.P. and Shah J.M.,"Can genetic engineering-based methods for gene function identification be eclipsed by genome editing in plants? A comparison of methodologies",Molecular Genetics and Genomics,296:485-500
- Joseph J.T, Chandhini S, Das S, Mysore KS and Shah J.M.,"Methylation status of Arabidopsis DNA repair gene promoters during Agrobacterium infection reveals epigenetic changes in three generations",Plant Molecular Biology Reporter,10.1007/s11105-021-01287-6
- Yoosuf NA, Joseph J.T. and Shah J.M. 2020.,"Mutagenicity assessment of sunset yellow on chromosomal aberrations and whole genome DNA strand breaks in Allium cepa.",Journal of Cytology and Genetics,21:121-129
- 19. Shah, J. M., Ramakrishnan A.M., Singh, A.K., Ramachandran, S., Unniyampurath, U., Jayshankar, A., Balasundaram, N., Dhanapal, S., Hyde, G. and Baskar, R.,"Suppression of different classes of somatic mutations in Arabidopsis by vir gene-expressing Agrobacterium strains",BMC Plant Biology,15:210, 2015
- 20. Majhi, B. B., Shah, J. M. and Veluthambi, K.,"A novel T-DNA integration in rice involving two interchromosomal translocations",Plant Cell Reports,33:929–944, 2014
- ,"Quantitative scoring of mutations using plants",Abrahamea - An International Journal of Plant Sciences,2:5-11, 2016
- ,"Origin of petiole and midrib in Arabidopsis thaliana",Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy ,71:99, 2013
- ,"Glimpses of a century-old story: Agrobacterium, a pathogen deployed for genetic engineering",Resonance,18:336-344, 2013
- ,"Transgenic rice lines constitutively co-expressing rice thaumatin-like protein (tlp-D34) and chitinase (chi11) transgenes in one T-DNA display synergistic enhancement of sheath blight resistance",Biologia Plantarum ,57:351-358, 2013
- ,"DIANTHIN, a negative selection marker in tobacco, is non-toxic in transgenic rice and confers sheath blight resistance",Biologia Plantarum,54:443-450, 2010
- ,"Enhanced sheath blight resistance in transgenic rice expressing an endochitinase gene from Trichoderma virens",Biotechnology Letters ,31:239-244, 2009
- ,"Gene targeting: An emerging technology for functional genomics in plants",Journal of Swamy Botanical - Club,23:39-42, 2006
- ,"Screening internal controls for expression analyses involving numerous treatments by combining statistical methods with reference gene selection tools",Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants,25:289-301, 2019
- ,"Plant reference genes for development and stress response studies. ",Journal of Biosciences ,43:173-187, 2018
- ,"Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPRs) Alter Plant Host Somatic Mutation Frequencies ",International Journal of Plant and Environment,5:149-154, 2019
Group Members
 | Joyous T Joseph- Doctoral Fellow (Ph.D.)
- Email:
- Thesis Title: ANALYZING THE INFLUENCE OF AGROBACTERIUM TUMEFACIENS ON THE EXPRESSION AND EPIGENETIC PROFILE OF PLANT DNA REPAIR SYSTEM
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Research Projects Undertaken
Profiling the epigenetic signatures induced in plants by the dung of indigenous cow varieties
DBT
Mechanism deployed by plant host to maintain its genomic integrity, in response to bacterial stress.
DST-INSPIRE
Cloning and characterization of gametophyte-specific promoters from plants
KSCSTE
In planta analysis of somatic mutation rates upon bacterial infection and identifying factors involved in alteration and/or protection of host genome.
DST SERB
Profiling of beneficial rhizobacteria-induced epigenetic response and genome stability in plants
CRG-SERB
Books / Chapters
Chapter(s) - Co-Author, (2021). Plant Defense Mechanisms, IntechOpen Limited, London, UK, 978-1-83969-771-5Chapter(s) - Co-Author, (2021). Insights into advances in life sciences, S. K. Jain Publishers. India, 978-93-82845-41-6Book - Sole Author, (2012). Strategies to overcome fungal diseases in plants: An enchiridion, Lambert Academic Publishing AG & Co. KG Heinrich-Böcking-Straße 6-8, 66121 Saarbrücken, Germany, 978-3-8484-3300-1
Awards & Honours
- Honour - Executive committee member and life member, Society of Cytologists and Geneticists (SCG)
- Honour - Fellow of Young Academy of India (YAI)
- Honour - Fellow of Kerala Academy of Sciences (KAS)
- Awards - Women Achiever of the Year, 2023, Awarded by the Hon. VC, Central University of Kerala
- Awards - Best oral presentation award by the CSIR - North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat, Assam, during the ‘International Seminar & Workshop on CRISPR/Cas-based Plant Functional Genomics and Computational Modeling (ISWCPC-2023)’.
- Awards - DST INSPIRE FACULTY FELLOWSHIP
- Awards - Young Scientist Award at the National Symposium ‘From Chromosomes To Genomes – Challenges And Prospects’, University of Kerala (March 2008)
- Awards - IIT-Madras Post-Doctoral Fellow
- Awards - DBT Research Associateship
- Awards - Best paper presentation award at ‘International symposium on Genomics of crops, medicinal plants and microbes’. Department of Botany and Department of Biotechnology, University of Kerala, India (May 2011)
Miscellaneous
| Membership/Fellowship of other institutions/professionals societies : |
1. Executive committee member and life member, Society of Cytologists and Geneticists (SCG)
2. Fellow of Young Academy of India (YAI)
3. Life member, Society of Biological Chemists (SBC)
4. Life member, Kerala Academy of Sciences (KAS)
5. Life member, International Society of Environmental Botanists (ISEB)
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| Student related co-curricular, extension and field based activities and counseling. |
Editorial board member and reviewer
Editorial board member of Abrahamea-An international journal on research in plant sciences (ISSN:2395-4108), published by the Department of Botany, University of Kerala.
Reviewer for -
1. Scientific Reports
2. PLOS ONE
3. Molecular Genetics and Genomics
4. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences
5. Critical Reviews in Biotechnology
6. Environmental Sustainability
7. Molecular Biology Reports
8. Biologia Plantarum
9. Journal of Plantation Research
10. Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy
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| Contribution to corporate sector-management of the department and institution through participation in academic and administration,committees and responsibilities.
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1. Joint Director, Kasaragod Botanical Garden and Research Centre, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod from January 13, 2021 onwards.
2. Board of studies member, 2014-2016, for M.Sc. Plant Science, Department of Plant Science, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod.
3. Head in charge of the Department of Plant Science, Central University of Kerala, December 20, 2013 to August 5, 2014.
4. Board of studies member, for M.Sc. Genomic Science, Department of Genomic Science, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod. (2020 onwards)
5. Internship coordinator of the Institution’s Innovation Council (ICC2.0).
6. Nodal Officer for Farming in Central University of Kerala Campus. (2020 onwards)
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| Other activities/Responsibilities : |
Dissertations guided/On-going
Number of Ph.D. Students guided (completed) - one
Number of Ph.D. Students guiding (on-going) - Six
Number of M.Sc. dissertations guided (completed) - 44
Organizing member of Seminars/Conference - 18
Invited talks - 42
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| Any other relevant information, if not given above : |
Area of Research: Plant-microbe interaction, Plant epigenetics, Mutations and DNA repair in plants
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