Bansal earned his PhD in 1988 from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), India, and carried out his postdoctorate at Harvard University (US), in 1992. He is adjunct professor at the Centre for Crop and Food Innovation, Murdoch University, in Perth, Australia, and serves on the board of directors of the Global Plant Council, the board of trustees of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, and the research advisory council of IARI, New Delhi. He is the first recipient of the Norman Borlaug Chair, in 2010. He served as elected secretary of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India from 2021 to 2023, as the director of the premier ICAR institute, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Government of India, New Delhi from 2010–2016, and as elected vice-chair from Asia for the 15th regular session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture of the United Nations (2013–2015). He played a visionary and key role in formulating the World Bank project on National Agricultural Higher Education, which has been implemented across 75 agricultural universities in the country, since 2017.

Bharat Chattoo is a professor in the department of microbiology and biotechnology centre, MS University of Baroda, coordinator of the Biotechnology Programme and director of the Centre for Genome Research. He is the founder vice chancellor of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University. He obtained his PhD from the University of Delhi. Subsequently, he worked at the University of Rochester Medical Centre and has been a visiting scientist/professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, National Institute of Bioscience and Human Technology, Rice Genome Programme in Tsukuba, Japan, and Ciba-Geigy in Basle. He was a staff scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and also worked at the Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basle. He serves on several committees of the Government of India and Gujarat state and has published extensively.

Chopra (PhD, Edinburgh) is chancellor of the Central University of Kerala, India. He was educated at the University of Delhi and Indian Agricultural Research Institute where he began his research career in 1958. He has held key positions in the government of India including Dir. Gen., Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and Member, Planning Commission. He sat on the Boards of Trustees of IRRI, ICRISAT and CYMMIT, and was a member of the Science Council, CGIAR. He is a fellow of the Indian Natl. Science Acad.; Indian Acad. of Science; Natl. Acad. of Science India; Natl. Acad. of Agricultural Science and Eur. Acad. of Science, Arts and Humanities. His honours include: Padma Bhushan, India; Aryabhata Award, INSA; Biological Science Award, FICCI; and Borlaug Award. He served as president of the Natl. Acad. of Agricultural Science, and has received DSc (h.c.) from six universities.

Egamberdieva is the Head of the research group at the Faculty of Biology, National University of Uzbekistan. She received her PhD in agricultural sciences from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. On the national level she has played a leading role in the implementation and evaluation of the national programmes and projects in agricultural research for sustainable development, and acts as a Chair of the Executive Committee of the OWSD Central Asia National Chapter, and Vice-Chair and National Focal Point Representative to the UNESCO-STEPAN (Science and Technology Policy Asian Network). Egamberdieva is also involved in science policy, and served on the advisory committee of the German Council of Science and Humanities (WR). She currently serves on the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security, and also acts as the Country Ambassador for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). She is a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA). In 2023 she has been awarded with UNESCO Carlos Finley Prize for Microbiology.

Jahiruddin (PhD, 1986, Aberdeen University) is a Professor of Soil Science, former Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and former Associate Director of Central Laboratory at Bangladesh Agricultural University. He obtained BAS Gold Medal Award 2009, Global Research Impact Award 2017, BAAG Gold Medal Award 2018 and Soil Care Award 2018. He is a Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS). Professor Jahiruddin has a very high record of research publications in relation to Micronutrient problems, arsenic contamination and conservation agriculture. He worked as a team leader for research priority setting in agriculture and development of vision document -2030 and beyond in Bangladesh: Land and Soil Resource Management.

Joshi is an agricultural scientist with a PhD in agricultural science earned in Japan, and over 25 years of experience in the field. He has been at the forefront of agrobiodiversity conservation, developing and promoting more than 100 innovative methods and best practices for managing agrobiodiversity. His interventions comprise crops, livestock, forages, agro-insects, agro-microbes, and aquatic agricultural genetic resources. His pioneering efforts include genetic enhancement of landraces, biotechnology applications, GIS, climate analog tools, participatory and evolutionary plant breeding, and agricultural policy development. Joshi has published more than 600 articles, edited 25 books, and served as editor-in-chief for two scientific journals. He has taught plant breeding, genetics, biotechnology, and statistics at various universities and was a resource person in international training. He received 12 awards and serves as president of the Plant Breeding and Genetic Society of Nepal. A life member of many scientific organizations, his motto is to make agricultural genetic resources competent and dynamic, emphasizing ecological yield, food health index, and ecological agriculture.

Malik was educated at Government College, Lahore, Pakistan, and the U. of Aston, Birmingham, UK (PhD, 1970). He is currently Dist. Natl. Prof. (Biotechnology) and Dean Postgraduate Studies, Forman Christian College U., Lahore. He was Member, Pakistan Planning Comm., and Secretary, Natl. Comm. on Biotech.. Previously he worked as snr. scientific officer, Nuclear Inst. for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), Faisalabad; Principal Scientific Officer, NIAB; Chief Scientific Officer, Natl. Inst. of Biotech. and Genetic Eng. (NIGBE); Chief Scientist and DG NIBGE and NIAB; Chairman, Pakistan Agriculture Res. Council; and Mmember (biosciences), PAEC. His awards include: Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, 1988; Sitara-e-Imtiaz, 1998; Hilal-e-Imtiaz, 2004; Gold Medal, Pakistan Acad. of Sci., 1996; and ISESCO Prize in Biology, 1997. He is a fellow of the Pakistan Acad. of Sciences.

Muhammed is rector of the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. He received his DPhil in biochemistry. Oxford University, and completed postdoctoral research at the Oakridge National Laboratory, USAEC. He established the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology, Faisalabad, in 1969 and was its first director. He was also the vice-chancellor of Agriculture University, Faisalabad, and founder-chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council from which he retired in 1990. He was awarded an honorary DSc, the Prime Minister's Gold medal, and the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement by FAO. He is fellow and past-president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. He was elected president of the Pakistan Association for Advancement of Science and the Scientific Society of Pakistan.

Singhal earned her PhD in 1990 from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India, where she is now a professor. She received fellowships from the Indian National Science Academy, Indian National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences India, International Bioprocessing Association, and Association of Food Scientists and Technologists (India). She was a member of scientific panels and working groups, FSSAI, Government of India, and a member of the subject expert committee of national bodies of the Government of India, including BIRAC, DST, UGC, DBT, and TDB. She is a project evaluator for the European Science Foundation, was an associate editor with Carbohydrate Polymers, and is an associate editor with Sustainable Food Technology. She was a chairperson, Research Council, CSIR-CFTRI, and is a former member of the Research Council, CSIR-NIIST. She is a subject expert with the National Board of Accreditation and works in interdisciplinary areas encompassing chemical sciences, in particular, food chemistry, biological sciences, and engineering sciences, where she works with separation techniques, using supercritical carbon dioxide and chromatography.

Ajayaghosh is the Director of the CSIR-National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India and Professor of Academy of Scientific Innovative Research, CSIR, India. He obtained his Ph.D in Chemistry in 1989 at University of Calicut, India. He has made significant contributions in molecular assemblies, fluorescent materials, organogels, molecular probes and photoresponsive materials. His awards includes INSA medal for young scientists, S S Bhatnagar prize, Khwarizmi International Award, Infosys prize, TWAS prize, CRSI Silver Medal and J.C.Bose National Fellowship. His membership includes: Indian Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the TWAS fellowship.

Badshah earned his PhD in 1994 from Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad. He is Vice Chancellor of the University of Buner and Ex-Professor Emeritus and Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, QAU, Islamabad. He is a Fellow of Pakistan Academy of Sciences (PAS); Chemical Society, Pakistan; and Associate Editor of the Journal of Chemical Society of Pakistan. His prizes include Research Productivity Award from Pakistan Council for Science and Technology (2001-16); Gold Medal from PAS; Best Teacher and Best Paper Awards from Higher Education Commission, Pakistan; and Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (TI) from Government of Pakistan.

Chakravarty is professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He obtained his PhD in 1982 from Calcutta University working at IACS (Kolkata) and did his postdoctoral studies at Texas A and M University prior to joining IISc in 1985 as assistant professor. He has made important contributions in bioinorganic chemistry towards developing the chemistry of bio-essential first-row transition metal-based synthetic photo-chemotherapeutic agents that are active in visible light in different types of cancer cells. His awards include: SS Bhatnagar Prize in 1998; CSIR, New Delhi; CRSI Silver Medal in 2007; JC Bose national fellowship of DST, Govt. of India; and Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, Germany, in 1994. His membership includes: Indian National Science Academy (FNA) in 2006 and Indian Academy of Sciences (FASc) in 1995.

Chakravorty was educated in Kolkata at Mitra Inst., Scottish Church College, U. College of Sc. (PhD 1961), and at MIT and Harvard. He is emeritus prof. of IACS, Dept. of Inorganic Chem., Indian Ass. for the Cultivation of Sc., Kolkata, where he also served as prof. and head. He was also prof. and head, Dept. of Chem., Indian Inst. of Tech., Kanpur. His awards and honours include: SS Bhatnagar Prize; TWAS Award in Chem.; DSc (h.c.); TR Seshadri, Acharya JC Ghosh, RC Mehrotra, CRSI Gold and ICS Gold Medals; INSA Golden Jubilee Research Professorship; JNCASR Hidustan Lever Research Professorship, Tata Chemicals Platinum Jubilee Distinguished Emeritus Professorship; fellowships of Indian Acad. of Scs. and INSA. He has been on the editorial boards of major journals and publications including Inorg. Chem., Dalton Trans., Inorg. Chim. Acta and Comprehensive Coord Chem (2nd edition).

Chandrasekaran is a INSA Senior Scientist at the Department of Organic Chemistry , Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. He is also a Honorary Professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur, Bangalore. He was previously lecturer, assistant professor and professor of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India from 1978-89. He is a synthetic organic chemist who is internationally recognized for his contributions to methodology development. His work has included the study of chemistry of Mo-S systems, organic-inorganic hybrid materials as catalysts for asymmetric synthesis, synthesis of peptides and synthesis of thiosugars as glycosidase inhibitors. He has been awarded the SS Bhatnagar Prize, CSIR, New Delhi and JC Bose National Fellowship of DST. He is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy.

Chandrasekhar is the Director of the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar, India. He is on a deputation from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He obtained his PhD in 1982 at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He investigates main-group organometallic chemistry, inorganic rings, metal clusters and cages. He also works on materials with emphasis on catalysis, magnetism and photophysical properties. He is a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of India. His honours include the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, the Friedrich Wilhelm-Bessel Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, the JC Bose National Fellowship by the Dept. of Science and Technology, New Delhi and the SASTRA-CNR Rao award.

Chandrashekar is prof., Indian Inst. of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India. He was previously: Dir., Natl. Inst. of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar. Presently he has taken over the charge of Secretary, Science and Engineering Research Board, Dept. of Science and Technology, New Delhi (since 2013). He has made significant contributions in the area of molecular receptors for neutral, cationic and anionic substrates, photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy, model compounds for photosynthetic intermediates, catalysts for organic conversions and supramolecular systems for molecular devices. His awards include: SS Bhatnagar Prize; Prof. P. Ray Memorial Award; CRSI bronze and silver medals; Homi Bhabha Award; and JC Bose National Fellowship, Dept. of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India. He is an elected fellow of all three national science academies of India.

Chattaraj is a Professor at BIT Mesra. He was an Institute Chair Professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India. He received his PhD from IIT Bombay where he is now a Distinguished Visiting Professor. A former research associate of UNC Chapel Hill and FAU, Erlangen-Nürnberg. Received University Gold and Bardhaman Sammilani medals; INSA (Young Scientist) medal; CRSI Bronze and Silver medals; IAAM medal ; Associate, Indian Academy of Sciences; BM Birla Science Prize; BC Deb Memorial award ; Acharya P.C.Ray Memorial Awards (ICS and NASI); Prof. S. Basu Memorial Lecture Award, INSA; Prof. R.P.Mitra Memorial Lecture, DU; Prof. S.K.Siddhanta Memorial Lecture,BU. He is a member of the Indian Natl. Science Academy; Indian Academy of Sciences; National Academy of Sciences, India; West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology; Royal Society of Chemistry, UK and FWO, Belgium. He is Sir J.C. Bose National Fellow. He is a member of the Science Education Panel of the Indian Science Academies. He was Convener, CTS , Convener, Kharagpur Local Chapter, INSA, council member of CRSI, Dean (Faculty) and Head of the Chem. Dept., IIT Kharagp

Choudhary is an eminent bioorganic chemist and Director of the Intl. Center for Chem. and Biol. Scs.. He has 962 res. pubs. with an impact factor 1646, citations 9,447 and h index 38. His work bridges the gap between structures of new chem. constituents and their pharm. properties. He is distinguished for his pioneering work in discovering hundreds of new molecular entities and their role in the treatment of various diseases. He has discovered the most potent anti-epileptic and anti-leishmanial compounds, which completed phase-1 clinical trials. His research in the field of enzyme inhibition has led to advances at fundamental level, exploring the potential of enzyme inhibition based therapeutics. He established several research centres in Pakistan and helped to set up research units in Africa, South and Central Asia. He trained hundreds of foreign researchers, including women scholars.

Desiraju obtained his BSc (1972) from the U. of Bombay and PhD (1976) from the U. of Illinois, Urbana. He was in the U.of Hyderabad between 1979 and 2009. In 2009, he joined the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He is a very well known structural chemist. His books on crystal engineering (Elsevier, 1989) and the weak hydrogen bond (OUP, 1999) are now standard works with 4000 and 6000 citations respectively. He co-authored a textbook in crystal engineering in 2011. He is on the past or present editorial advisory board of Angewandte Chemie, Chem. Communications and the J. of the American Chem. Soc.. He is a Past President of the International Union of Crystallography. He received the Humboldt Forschungspreis in 2000 and an Honorary Doctorate from the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina in 2013. He received the ISA Medal for science of the University of Bologna in 2018. He is one of the most highly cited Indian scientists with an H-index of 101.

Ghosh is currently Distinguished Professor and Dean, Academic Affairs at the UM-DAE-Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, University of Mumbai, Kalina Campus, Santacruz (East), Mumbai 400098, India. Earlier he served as Head of the Theoretical Chemistry Section, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India, and senior professor and dean-academic (chemical sciences) at Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, India. He was educated at the University of Burdwan, India (MSc), and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (PhD, 1982). He has worked in different areas of theoretical chemistry, dealing with density functional theory at different length scales and time-dependent systems, theory of chemical binding, structure of soft matter at interfaces, dynamics in condensed phase and modeling materials for energy applications. He is a fellow of all three national science academies of India and is recipient of the TWAS Prize in Chemistry, silver medal of the Chemical Research Society of India, JC Bose National Fellowship of DST, India, Jagdish Shankar Memorial Lecture Award of INSA and D.Sc. (honoris causa) from Kalyani University, India.

Jemmis is professor of chemistry at IISc, Bangalore. He studies the structure and reactivity problems of real life molecules, clusters and solids using theoretical techniques. He has successfully linked different areas of chemistry through his computational chemical approach. His major contributions include theoretical study of transition metal complexes of fullerenes and their ring-opened alternatives; a unifying electron-counting rule for polyhedral boranes, metallaboranes, and metallocenes; electronic structural requirements for macro-polyhedral boranes and elemental boron; establishment of novel analogies between carbon and boron, and on the structures and reactions of transition metal organometallics. Recently he has formulated electron counting rules for borophenes and borophites. The interplay between hexagonal hole density and interlayer bond density provides infinite options multilayer borophenes. He is a fellow of all science academies of India, winner of the INSA Young Scientist Prize, SS Bhatnagar Prize, Millennium Medal of Indian CSIR and other national science honours. Govt of India honored him with the civilian award, Padma Shri.

Khan, a leading figure in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery, boasts a remarkable career marked by prestigious accolades and ground breaking research. He holds a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Karachi. He has received many awards, including Gold Medals from the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and recognition from Elsevier Publishers. His contributions to science have been acknowledged nationally with civil awards and Research Productivity Awards from the Pakistan Council for Science & Technology. Khan's establishment of a cutting-edge laboratory at the University of Karachi's International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences reflects his dedication to advancing research. Noteworthy achievements include pioneering work on enzyme inhibitors against diabetes, peptic ulcers, and leishmaniasis. He has advanced microwave-assisted synthetic chemistry in Pakistan, simplifying complex reactions. Khan's mentorship of young scholars and publication record demonstrates his commitment to fostering scientific excellence. With over 900 research papers published in reputable journals, his impact on medicinal chemistry is profound and far-reaching.

Maji is a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India. He earned his PhD from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, in Kolkata (2002). His research focuses on the design and functionalization of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous organic polymers (POPs), of which he explores the applications in energy storage and conversion, and cost-effective adsorptive separation and purification of feedstocks. He developed MOFs and POPs for CO2 capture, and photo and electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to fuels and green H2 production by water splitting. His research also extends to metal-organic “soft” materials for catalysis and optoelectronics, and his achievements are well reflected in the more than 285 publications to his credit. Maji is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in chemical sciences (2019), the Scopus Young Scientist Award, and the Senior Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany). His accolades include the Bronze Medal from the Chemical Research Society of India and the Materials Research Society of India. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Manoharan is Distinguished Fellow INSA in the Department of Chemistry of IIT, Madras. He obtained his PhD from Columbia Univ. and was a research assoc. at Michigan State Univ. He was in the Faculty of Chemistry both in IIT/Kanpur and IIT/Madras. He founded the premier Regional Sophisticated Instrumentation Centre to serve Indian scientists. He was Vice Chancellor at the Univ. of Madras (1997-99); Institute emeritus professor, CSIR, emeritus scientist, and DST Ramanna Fellow all at IIT, Madras, and honorary professor at JNCASR, Bangalore and INSA Senior Scientist. He was also Raman Chair Professor at IGNOU New Delhi (2009-2012).He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences and served as the Scientific Secretary of INSA. He has received several awards and medals including the FICCI award, Palit Award, Rangadhama Award of the INSA, Sadhan Basu Memorial Award, and the CRSI Gold medal, a life-time achievement award by the Intl. EPR Society.

Prof. Ulmas Mirsaidov is the consultant and head researcher in the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Safety & Security Agency of Tajikistan. He worked as the director at the Regulatory Authority in Tajikistan and as director of the V.I. Nikitin Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences, Tajikistan. His research areas are the chemistry and technology of inorganic hydrides, mineral raw materials, and radioecology. He had practical research work, which is associated with the recovery of materials from wastes of the Tajik aluminum and Isfara hydrometallurgical production. He was awarded: Kurnakov Medal; Tajikistan’s Lenin Komsomol Prize; Peoples' Friendship Medal, Abu Ali Ibn Sino State Award, and ISESCO Award. Besides, his membership in National academy of Sciences of Tajikistan; International Academy Of Science And Technology in California; International Association of the Academies of Sciences; and Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA).”

Mukherjee is Professor Emeritus, Raman Center for Atomic, Molecular and Optical Sciences, and the Ex-Director of the Indian Assoc. for the Cultivation of Science. He is also adjunct professor of the Theoretical Chemistry Dept., Nanjing University. He is recognized for his work on quantum many-body theory, especially multi-reference coupled-cluster approaches, and other areas of theoretical chemistry and theoretical spectroscopy. His awards include: Humboldt Prize of Germany, 2010, SS Bhatnagar, 1987; Asutosh Mukherjee, 1965; Jagdish Shankar Memorial Award, INSA, 1994; Fukui Memorial Prize, Asia-Pacific Assoc. of Theoretical and Computational Chemists (APATCC), 2008; Silver Medal, Chemical Research Soc. of India, 1999 and the Medal of the Centre of Applied Wave Mechanics, France (2014). He is a fellow of all Indian academies of sciences; APATCC; and Intl. Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences.

Pant earned his PhD from Jeonbuk National University, South Korea, in 2011. He is a pioneering chemist of Nepal and made a significant contribution towards fabricating advanced polymer and ceramic nanomaterials that have potential applications in the biomedical field and environmental remediation. His research on nanotechnology for the fabrication of hierarchical nanomembrane and nanoparticles using top-down and bottom-up approaches has greatly enhanced global knowledge in the field of advanced nanomaterials. He has been teaching and doing research for three decades, becoming a leader in the materials science and engineering discipline. Pant has published 88 SCI/SCIE-ranked journal articles and has 5,400 citations with h-index=43. He has more than 100 conference proceedings and non-ranked journal publications and is the author of 14 books and book chapters in chemistry and materials science. He is the editor of four SCI/SCIE journals and the reviewer of about 60 ranked journals. Currently, Pant is working as vice-chancellor of Far Western University, Nepal.