Scientist Profile

Dr. Rita Sharma

Dr. Rita Sharma

Scientist-E

Date of Joining: 15 Feb 2024

+91 172 522 1252

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Broad Discipline: Plant Molecular Biology


Specialization: Structural, Functional and Comparative Genomics, Transcriptomics, Phylogenomics, Genome Editing, and Non-coding RNA Biology
 

  • Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Rajasthan, India (March 2021 onwards)
  • Indo-US GETin Fellow (IUSSTF-DBT) at Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (Feb 2018- Feb 2019)
  • UGC-Assistant Professor, School of Computational & Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (Feb 2015-March 2021)
  • Ramalingaswami Fellow, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (March 2014-Jan 2018)
  • Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Plant Pathology and the Genome Centre, University of California, Davis, California, USA (May 2009-Feb 2014)
     
  • Generated transcriptomic resources for rice and sorghum
  • Functional characterization of several genes associated with plant development and stress response
  • Contributed to genome sequencing and comparative genomic analysis of Switchgrass and Foxtail Millet 
  • Development of phylogenomics databases for rice
  • Development and optimization of methods for transient transformation and mechanical stress analysis
     
  • Identification and characterization of male germline/gametophyte-specific promoters in sorghum
  • CRISPR-mediated editing of small RNA-biogenesis machinery to engineer male fertility in an environment-dependent manner
  • Characterization of long non-coding RNAs associated with apomixis and seed development 
  • Genetic modification of Sorghum for improved yield, nutritional value, and abiotic stress tolerance

  1. Jain R, Dhaka N,  Yadav P, Sharma MK, Danish M, Sharma S, Kumari S, Vashisht I, Singh RKB, Sharma R. Integrated analysis of transcriptomic and small RNA sequencing data provides miRNA candidates for engineering agronomically important seed traits in Brassica juncea. Current Plant Biology 2023 Sept 2023, 35-36; 100306.

  2. Rodrigues JA, Hsieh PH, Ruan D, Nishimura T, Sharma MK, Sharma R, et al (2021) Divergence among rice cultivars reveals roles for transposition and epimutation in ongoing evolution of genomic imprinting. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 118 (29) e2104445118.

  3. Lovell et al,. (2021) Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass. Nature 590 (7846), 438-444.

  4. Wierbowski SD, Vo TV, Falter-Braun P, Jobe TO, Kruse LH, Wei X, Liang J, Meyer MJ, Akturk N, Rivera-Erick CA, Cordero NA, Paramo MI, Shayhidin EE, Bertolotti M, Tippens ND, Akther K, Sharma R, et al (2020) A massively parallel barcoded sequencing pipeline enables generation of the first single-colony ORFeome and high-quality protein-protein interactome map for rice Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Vol 117, 21.

  5. Dhaka N., Sharma S., Vashisht I., Kandpal M., Sharma MK. and Sharma R. (2019) Small RNA profiling from meiotic and post-meiotic anthers reveals prospective miRNA-target modules for engineering male fertility in sorghum. Genomics, 112 (2), 1598-1610.

    List of Publications

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  • WISER (Women Involvement in Science and Engineering Research) Award by Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (established by DST, India, and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany (June 2023).
  • SERB Star Award by DST-SERB, Government of India (May 2023).
  • Faculty Advisor, Regional Student Group, International Society of Computational Biologists (2019-2023).
  • Genome Engineering/Editing Technology (GETin) Fellowship through IUSSTF and DBT to work at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley (Feb 2018-Feb 2019).
  • Ramalingaswami Re-entry fellowship (2014-2019), by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
  • Certificate of appreciation for witnessing Republic Day Parade, 2005 as guest of Honourable Prime Minister of India in recognition of academic performance in post-graduation.
  • National Eligibility Test (CSIR-NET) qualified in 2003 among top 20%.
  • University Gold Medallist (MSc Botany, G.N.D.U, Amritsar).
  • Founding Member, Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Interaction and Networking Society.
  • Lifetime Member, Indian Society for Plant Physiology.