Specialization

Plant Molecular Biology; CRISPR-Cas-based Genome Editing

Email

davinder.sharma@thapar.edu

Educational Qualification

• Ph.D: ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, and Kurukshetra University (2015)
• ASRB NET: Plant Biochemistry (2016)
• CSIR- UGC NET: Life Sciences (2013)

Professional Experience

• Assistant Professor, Dept of Biotechnology, Thapar Institute of engineering and Technology (TIET), Patiala (Jan 2025 to till date)
• PBC Postdoc Fellow, Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Tel Aviv University, Israel (July 2019 - Aug 2024)
• Research Associate, ICAR-National Diary Research Institute, Karnal (July, 2016 - June 2018);
• Senior Research Fellow, ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal, (Dec 2015 - July 2016)
• Visiting student Fellow, Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich, Switzerland (May 2012 - June, 2012)

Research Proposals

• Prestigious PBC Fellowship funded by The Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC), Israel (2019 to 2021)

Patent

• Rust disease resistance genes and use thereof. U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/213222
• Composition of cell lysis and extraction buffers for obtaining high integrity RNA from liver. Indian Patent Application No. 201811038729

Research Interest

Our research is centered on understanding how wheat plants respond and adapt to abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, and nutrient deficiency, as well as biotic stresses including fungal pathogens. We aim to discover and characterize novel genes conferring stress tolerance and disease resistance from wheat and its wild relatives. By leveraging advanced plant genomics, Agrobacterium-mediated wheat transformation, and CRISPR-Cas9-based genome editing, we identify, clone, and functionally validate key genes involved in stress response pathways. Our ultimate goal is to develop genetically improved, climate-resilient, and disease-resistant wheat cultivars to support sustainable agricultural productivity.

Publications

• Sharma D, Avni R, Gutierrez-Gonzalez J, Kumar R, Sela H, Prusty MR, Cohen AS, Molnár I, Holušová K, Said M, Doleže J, Millet E, Khazan-Kost S, Landau E, Bethke G, Ezrati S, Ronen M, Maatuk O, Eilam T, Manisterski J, Ben-Yehuda P, Anikster Y, Matny O, Steffenson BJ, Mascher M, Brabham HJ, Moscou MJ, Liang Y, Yu G, Wulff BBH, *Muehlbauer G, *Minz-Dub A, and *Sharon A (2024) A single NLR gene confers resistance to leaf and stripe rust in wheat. Nature communications. 15:9925
• Prusty MR, Shatil-Cohen A, Kumar R, Sharma D, Minz-Dub A, Ezrati S, Hihinashvili A, Sharon A (2025) Pigments to precision: RUBY aiding genetic transformation and genome editing in wheat and barley. Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants.  15:1-10.
• Haber, Z, Sharma D, Selvaraj KSV, Sade N. (2024) "Is CRISPR/Cas9-based multi-trait enhancement of wheat forthcoming? Plant Sciences. 112021.
• Sharma D^#, Parpar T^# , Prusty MR^#, Brotman Y, Cohen AS, Kumar R, Leah R, Minz-Dub A, Sharon A, Nir Sade (2025) Population genomic analysis of Aegilops longissima identifies targets for bread wheat improvement. Manuscript in preparation, ^#Equally contributed
• Sharma D^# , Haber Z^# , Brotman Y, Cohen AS, Kumar R, Prusty MR, Leah R, Minz-Dub A, Nir Sade (2025) Wild wheat allele of B3 transcription factor regulates wheat yield tradeoff. Manuscript in preparation, ^#Equally contributed
• Sharma D^#, Haber Z^#, Toubiana D, Parpar T, Sade D, Jasinska W, Dalal A, Kelly G, Shaya F, Carmeli-Weissberg M, Rezenman S, Carmi N, Distelfeld A, Brotman Y, Sharon A, Alseekh S, Fernie AR, Sade N. (2025) Combined network analysis and machine learning allow the prediction of important metabolic pathways and its regulators genes as abiotic-stress-associated in the pan-genome bread wheat collection. Plant Biotechnology Journal (Under Review), # Equally contributed
• Gal A, Dalal A, Anfang M, Sharma D, Muchaki P, Kumar R, Egbaria A, Binenbaum J, Estefani Duarte K, Kelly G, Rodrigo de Souza W, Sade N. (2023) Gas exchange tracks root hydraulic conductivity which in term regulated by plasma membrane AQPs in Setaria Viridis. Plant Physiology. 193:2640-2660.
• Ahouvi Y, Haber H, Yehoshua Z Y, Rosental L, Toubiana D, Sharma D, Alseekh S, Tajima H, Fernie A R, Brotman Y, Blumwald E, Sade Nir (2022) The alteration of tomato chloroplast vesiculation positively affects whole-plant source–sink relations and fruit metabolism under stress conditions. Plant and Cell Physiology. 63:2008-2026.
• Sharma D, Singh R, Rane J, Gupta VK, Mamrutha HM, Tiwari R. (2016) Mapping quantitative trait loci associated with grain filling duration and grain number under terminal heat stress in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Plant Breeding. 135:538-545.
• Sharma D, Tiwari R, Gupta VK, Rane J, Singh R. (2018) Genotype and ambient temperature during growth can determine the quality of starch from wheat. Journal of Cereal Science. 79:240-246.
• Sharma D, Chandra Pandey G, Mamrutha HM, Singh R, Singh NK, Singh GP, Rane J, Tiwari R. (2019) Genotype–Phenotype relationships for high‐temperature tolerance: An integrated method for minimizing phenotyping constraints in wheat. Crop Science. 59:1973-1982.
• Sharma D^#, Golla N^#, Singh S, Singh PK, Singh D, Onteru SK. (2019) An efficient method for extracting next‐generation sequencing quality RNA from liver tissue of recalcitrant animal species. Journal of Cellular Physiology. 234:14405-14412. ^#Equally contributed
• Sharma D^#, Golla N^#, Singh D, Onteru SK. (2018) A highly efficient method for extracting next‐generation sequencing quality RNA from adipose tissue of recalcitrant animal species. Journal of Cellular Physiology. 233:1971-1974. ^#Equally contributed
• Kumar R, Mamrutha HM, Kaur A, Venkatesh K, Sharma D, Singh GP. (2019) Optimization of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in spring bread wheat using mature and immature embryos. Molecular Biology Reports. 46:1845-1853.
• Singh S, Golla N, Sharma D, Singh D, Onteru SK. (2019) Buffalo liver transcriptome analysis suggests immune tolerance as its key adaptive mechanism during early postpartum negative energy balance. Functional & Integrative Genomics. 19:759-773.
• Mamrutha HM, Sharma D, Khobra R, Krishnappa G, Khan H, Singh SK, Singh G, Singh GP. (2022) Pollen viability as a potential trait for screening heat tolerant wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Functional Plant Biology. 49:625-633
• Rane J, Sharma D, Ekatpure S, Aher L, Kumar M, Prasad SV, Nankar AN, Singh NP. (2019) Relative tolerance of photosystem II in spike, leaf, and stem of bread and durum wheat under desiccation. Photosynthetica. 57:1100-1108.
• Pawar SK, Sharma D, Duhan JS, Saharan MS, Tiwari R, Sharma I. (2016) Mapping of stripe rust resistance QTL in Cappelle–Desprez× PBW343 RIL population effective in northern wheat belt of India. 3 Biotech. 6:76.
• Raghav N, Singh R, Chhokar RS, Sharma D, Kumar R. (2016) Mutations in the plastidic ACCase gene endowing resistance to ACCase-inhibiting herbicide in Phalaris minor populations from India. 3 Biotech. 6:12.
• Kumar TV^#, Sharma D^#, Surla GN, Vedamurthy GV, Singh D, Onteru SK. Body condition score, parity, shelter cleanliness and male proximity (2020) Highly associated non-genetic factors with post-partum anestrus in Murrah buffalo in field conditions. Animal Reproduction Science. 214:106282. ^#Equally contributed
• Singh R, Sharma D, Raghav N, Chhokar RS, Sharma I. (2015) Molecular genotyping of herbicide resistance in P. minor: ACCase resistance. Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology. 175:1617-1621.
• Raghav N, Singh R, Sharma D, Kumar R, Chhokar RS. (2018) Molecular analysis for target site resistance in isoproturon resistant littleseed canarygrass (Phalaris minor Retz.). Romanian Biotechnological Letters. 23:13271
• Mamrutha HM, Sharma D, Kumar KS, Venkatesh K, Tiwari V, Sharma I. (2017) Influence of diurnal irradiance variation on chlorophyll values in wheat: A comparative study using different chlorophyll meters. National Academy Science Letters. 40:221-224.
• Sharma D, Mamrutha HM, Gupta VK, Tiwari R, Singh R. (2015) Association of SSCP variants of HSP genes with physiological and yield traits under heat stress in wheat. Research on Crops. 16:139-146.
• Sheoran S, Sharma P, Singh V, Pawar S, Sharma D, Jain N, Kumar R, Thakur V, Pandey GC, Malik R, Tiwari R. (2015) Assessment of genetic diversity in elite wheat genotypes using simple sequence repeat and quality protein markers. Journal of Wheat Research.7:18-26.
• Singh R, Tiwari R, Sharma D, Tiwari V, Sharma I. (2014) Mutagenesis for wheat improvement in the genomics era. Journal of Wheat Research. 6:120-125.
• Singh R, Tiwari R, Sharma D, Tiwari V, Sharma I. (2015) Variability in yield traits of TILLING population of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Journal of Applied and Natural Science. 7:443-446.
• Kumar R, Singh V, Pawar SK, Singh PK, Kaur A, Sharma D. (2019) Abiotic stress and wheat grain quality: A comprehensive review. In Wheat Production in Changing Environments (pp. 63-87). Springer, Singapore.
• Mamrutha HM, Singh R, Sharma D, Venkatesh K, Pandey GC, Kumar R, Tiwari R, Sharma I. (2019) Physiological and molecular basis of abiotic stress tolerance in wheat. In Genetic Enhancement of Crops for Tolerance to Abiotic Stress: Mechanisms and Approaches, Vol. I (pp. 99-124). Springer, Cham.
• Sharma D, Rane J, Singh R, Gupta VK, Tiwari R. (2019) Comparison of different planting methods to determine the precision of phenotyping wheat in field experiments. In Advances in Plant & Microbial Biotechnology (pp. 77-83). Springer, Singapore.
• Sharma D, Singh R, Tiwari R, Kumar R, Gupta VK. (2019) Wheat responses and tolerance to terminal heat Stress: A review. In wheat production in changing environments (pp. 149-173). Springer, Singapore.
• Sharma D, Tiwari R, Gupta VK, Rane J, Singh R. (2019) Identification of differentially expressed terminal heat stress-associated proteins in developing grains in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). In Advances in Plant & Microbial Biotechnology (pp. 13-18). Springer, Singapore.