Pramod Kumar Gupta

Biography:

Pramod Kumar Gupta retired after working for 30 years a senior scientist and lead the research project on somatic embryogenesis of conifer in the division of Forest Biotechnology at Weyerhaeuser Company, Federal Way, Washington, USA.  From 1984 - 1987, I was a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Don Durzan’s laboratory, University of California Davis, where he worked on the development of a somatic embryogenesis system, protoplast regeneration, cryopreservation, and genetic transformation with several conifer species. I received my Ph.D. on “Tissue Culture and biochemical studies in Eucalyptus” at the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, India in 1982.  I joined the plant tissue culture group at National Chemical laboratory, Pune in 1975.  At NCL, I developed clonal propagation methods for several tree species such as Teak, Eucalyptus, and Bamboo.I have published over 100 papers in international journal and wrote several articles for many tissue cultures books.  I have over 25 patents on somatic embryogenesis in conifer and also a co-editor of book “Somatic Embryogenesis in Woody Plant Vol. 1 to 7. In 1987, I was selected as an associate fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences for his original research in plant tissue culture. Recently I have received George Mendel award for his outstanding contribution in the vegetative propagation of trees from Mendel University Brno, Czech Republic. Now I have my own consulting company : Trees For The Future LLC