Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms of the Himalayas: Climate Change, Critically Endangered Species, and the Call for Sustainable Development

Author Biography

Dr. Ajay Sharma is a Natural Product Chemist with strong Organic Chemistry, Phytochemistry, Biochemistry, and Ethnobotany background. Presently, he is working as an Assistant Professor at the University Centre for Research and Development, Department of Chemistry, Chandigarh University, Mohali, India. He completed his Graduation (B.Sc. Medical) from Govt. College Hoshiarpur (affiliated to Panjab University, Chandigarh), Master’s Degree in Organic Chemistry (Natural Products) from Punjab Agriculture University Ludhiana and his PhD (Organic Chemistry – Natural product) from SLIET (Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering & Technology, Deemed University) Punjab. He has published over 51 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters in reputed international/national journals and books. Presently, his five edited book are under production in different international publication houses like Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier and Royal Society of Chemistry. He has various honors/Fellowship/Awards to his credit i.e. Role of honor from PAU Ludhiana (2011), Merit-cum-topper scholarship during M.Sc. (PAU Ludhiana) (2009-10), MHRD fellowship Award for Ph.D (2012), Award of INSPIRE fellowship (JRF, 2013) from DST, Award of INSPIRE fellowship (SRF, 2015) from DST, 1st Prize in Poster Award at National Conference (NICS-2016) and Best Poster Award in (TSFS-2016). He does research in Organic Chemistry, Natural Products Chemistry, Phytochemistry, Food Chemistry. His research activities have focused on isolation and characterization of bioactive extracts from traditional medicinal plants and evaluation of their biological potential. Currently, his research group at Chandigarh University is investigating the field of more environmentally friendly synthesis of metal nanoparticles and carbon nanodots using plant extracts/plant-based biomass followed by assessing their biological, catalytic, and sensing potential. Till date, he has successfully guided six M.Sc. dissertation students. Dr. Garima Bhardwaj is an independent researcher. She earned her PhD in Organic Chemistry from SLIET Longowal, Punjab. The topic of her PhD research was on studies in utilization of oleo-chemical industry by-products for bio-surfactant synthesis. She has published her PhD work into various reputed international journals. After PhD she joined Defence Institute of High-Altitude Research (DIHAR), Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) as a Research Associate in the Phytochemistry division. During her work period in DIHAR, DRDO, she got an opportunity to work on the nutritional profiling of high-altitude vegetables and medicinal plants where she developed her interest in Phytochemistry. She has published over 22 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters in reputed international/national journals and books. She has received award of Research fellowships from Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and Ministry of Defence, DRDO, India, for her doctoral and post-doctoral research, respectively. She does research in Organic Chemistry, Biosurfactant synthesis, Natural Products Chemistry, Phytochemistry. During PhD her research activities have focused on the isolation, characterization of novel strains to produce biosurfactants and their purification and structural elucidation using modern chromatographic and spectroscopic methods. In her post-doctoral research, she worked on the extraction and purification of bioactive compounds from high altitude regions and their qualitative and quantitative analysis. She is currently working on the natural product chemistry of the medicinal plants. Gulzar Ahmad Nayik completed his master’s degree in Food Technology from Islamic University of Science & Technology, Awantipora, Jammu and Kashmir, India, and his PhD from Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering & Technology, Sangrur, Punjab, India. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed research and review papers and 40+ book chapters, and he has edited 13 books with Springer, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. Dr. Nayik has also published a textbook on food chemistry and nutrition and has delivered several presentations at various national and international conferences, seminars, workshops and webinars. Dr. Nayik was shortlisted twice for the prestigious Inspire-Faculty Award in 2017 and 2018 from the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, India. He was nominated for India’s prestigious National Award (Indian National Science Academy Medal for Young Scientists 2019–2020). Dr. Nayik also fills the roles of editor, associate editor, assistant editor and reviewer for many food science and technology journals. He has received many awards, appreciations and recognitions and holds membership in various international societies and organizations. Dr. Nayik is currently editing several book projects with Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Royal Society of Chemistry, etc.