Altaf Ahmad is a Professor of Plant Biotechnology in the Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Dr. Ahmad has 22 years of research experience and more than 125 significant publications. A regular reviewer and on the panel of editorial boards of national and international journals, Dr. Ahmad is a member of prestigious national and international scientific societies. He has guided thesis research of 30 Ph.D. students (12 as supervisor and 18 as co-supervisor) and over 30 M.Sc. students. He organized several national and international seminars/ and handled several research projects funded by various agencies such as BBSRS-UK, DST, DBT, CSIR, UGC, CCRUM, ICAR, and INSA. He was a Visiting Scientist at the Virginia Polytechnic and State University, USA, University of Freiburg, University of Aberdeen, and the University of Cologne. Based on his research contributions, Dr. Ahmad has been honored with the INSA Medal for Young Scientist (2003) and Professor LSS Kumar Memorial Award (2003) of Indian National Science Academy, Young Scientist Award (2005) of Council of Science & Technology, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh, and elected as Associate of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Ambreen Asif is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. She earned her M.Sc. (Botany) degree from this university in 2013 and secured first position in order of merit. She was awarded her Ph.D. degree in 2019 on a topic “Characterization of genetic variability and mutagenicity induced by mutagens in Nigella sativa L. – an important medicinal herb of India”. She has published several significant research papers in journals of national and international repute such as Industrial Crop Products, Scientific Reports, Genes and Plants and is a frequent participant in scientific conferences and seminars in India. She is a thorough meritorious student and has been awarded the “University Gold Medal” for securing First position in M.Sc. (Botany), “Anjalina Khan Award” for securing First position in B.Sc. (Honors), and "Mrs. M.J. Haider Academic Memorial Award” for securing First position in Class 9th in Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. She received a Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) fellowship, a flagship programme of the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India for her Ph.D. work and was also awarded NEWS-India fellowship of BBSRC, UK for advance training in the University of Aberdeen, UK for three months.