Mohd. Sayeed Akhtar, PhD, is a Senior Assistant Professor at Gandhi Faiz-e-Aam College, Shahjahanpur,
U.P., India. He received his PhD degree from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, prior to conducting
postdoctoral research at the Botanical Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland, and Chonbuk National
University, Republic of Korea. He was formerly an Assistant Professor at Jimma University in Ethiopia and
research fellow at the Universiti Putra Malaysia's (UPM) Institute of Tropical Agriculture. He has been
listed among the top 2% of scientists in the world consecutively from past three years, according to
Stanford University in the United States. Dr. Akhtar is the author and co-author of more than 150 articles in
peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, and has edited over 20 books. He
has received many awards and honors for his work. A member and fellow of many prestigious
organizations, he is also an editorial board member and reviewer for several international journals. His
current work focuses on the molecular biotechnology, bioremediation, biomineralization, nanofertilizers,
and nanobiotechnology of rhizospheric plant-microbe interactions.

Khalid Rehman Hakeem, PhD, is a Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After
completing his doctorate (botany, specialization in plant eco-physiology and molecular biology) at Jamia
Hamdard, New Delhi, India, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Kashmir, India, and at Universiti
Putra Malaysia, Selangor, where he was a postdoctoral fellow researcher for several years. Dr. Hakeem
has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience in plant ecophysiology, biotechnology and
molecular biology, medicinal plant research, plant-microbe-soil interactions, as well as in environmental
studies. He is the recipient of several fellowships at both national and international levels. He has served
as a visiting scientist at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. To date, Dr. Hakeem has authored and edited
many books and has published many research publications in international journals and 55 book chapters
in edited volumes. He is on the advisory board of Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, and is also a fellow
of the Plantae Group of the American Society of Plant Biologists.