Specialization

Plant Molecular Biology

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)
 Senior Research 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 focuses on understanding how wheat adapts to abiotic and biotic stresses, which together
can cause over 70% of global agricultural productivity losses. We aim to isolate novel abiotic stress
tolerance and disease resistance genes from wheat and its wild relatives and harness them for wheat
improvement. Using advanced genomics and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, we identify, clone, and
functionally validate candidate genes, with the ultimate goal of developing climate-resilient and disease-
resistant wheat cultivars.
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
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.