Professional experience: 10 Years.

Dr. Ashutosh Rai is engaged in plant biochemistry research focusing on vegetable quality, post-harvest technologies, and nutrient bioavailability. His work spans edible coating development, nano-engineering approaches to improve biological availability of vitamins, and transcriptomic studies related to stress responses in vegetable crops.

Vegetable Quality and Nutrition — development of post-harvest technologies, biochemical analysis of nutrients and quality attributes, edible coatings and nano-engineering approaches to enhance shelf-life and nutrient availability. Transcriptomics of stress responses (drought, biocontrol interactions).

1. Sudhir Singh, Priti Khemariya, Ashutosh Rai, Avinash Chandra Rai, Tanmay K. Koley, and Bijendra Singh (2016). Carnauba wax-based edible coating enhances shelf-life and retain quality of eggplant (Solanum melongena) fruits. LWT-Food Science and Technology, 74:420-426.
2. Suhas G. Karkute, Ranjit Singh Gujjar, Ashutosh Rai, Moin Akhtar, Major Singh, Bijendra Singh (2018). Genome wide expression analysis of WRKY genes in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) under drought stress. Plant Gene 13:8–17.
3. Ranjit Singh Gujjar, Suhas G. Karkute, Ashutosh Rai, Major Singh and Bijendra Singh (2017). Proline-rich proteins may regulate free cellular proline levels during drought stress in tomato. Current Science, 114(4): 915-920.
4. Ranjit Singh Gujjar, Moin Akhtar, Ashutosh Rai, Major Singh (2014). Expression analysis of drought-induced genes in wild tomato line (Solanum habrochaites). Current Science, 107(3): 496-502.
5. Mishra, Sadhna; Shalini Sahani; Shikha Pandhi; Arvind Kumar; P. Kumar; Chandrakant Khaire; and A. Rai (2023). Enhancement in Biological Availability of Vitamins by Nano-engineering and its Applications: An Update. Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology.
6. Aamir, Mohd; V. Shanmugam; Manish Kumar Dubey; Fohad Mabood Husain; Mohd Adil; Waquar Akhter Ansari; Ashutosh Rai; and Pankaj Sah (2023). Transcriptomic characterization of Trichoderma harzianum T34 primed tomato plants: assessment of biocontrol agent induced host specific gene expression and plant growth promotion. BMC Plant Biology, 23:552.
7. Tyagi, S.; Kabade, P. G.; Gnanapragasam, N.; Singh, U. M.; Gurjar, A. K. S.; Rai, A.; ... & Singh, V. K. (2023). Codon Usage Provide Insights into the Adaptation of Rice Genes under Stress Condition. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 24(2), 1098.
8. Yadav M, Divyanshu K, Dubey MK, Rai A, Kumar S, Tripathi YN, Shukla V, Upadhyay RS (2023). Plant growth promotion and differential expression of defense genes in chilli pepper against Colletotrichum truncatum induced by Trichoderma asperellum and T. harzianum. BMC Microbiology, 23:54.
9. R Kumar, A Rai, AC Rai, VK Singh, M Singh, PM Singh, J Singh (2021). De novo assembly, differential gene expression and pathway analyses for anthracnose resistance in chilli (Capsicum annuum L.). Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, 1-15.
10. Sudhir Singh, Priti Khemariya and Ashutosh Rai (2013). Steeping preservation of cauliflower with hurdle concept. J. Food Sc. Technol., 52:1350–1360.

• National Post Doctoral Fellowship — SERB, DST, Govt. of India.
• Dr Harbhajan Singh Memorial Award — 2019 by Indian Society of Vegetable Science, Varanasi.
• CSIR-SRF Fellowship — HRDG-CSIR, New Delhi.