Rajesh Mehrotra Brief CV

Nationality: Indian

Qualification: PhD

Date of Birth: 05/ 12 /1973

Email : rajeshm@goa.bits-pilani.ac.in

Current Appointment: Professor, Dept of Biological Sciences, BITS, Pilani, K.K Birla Goa campus

Previous position held:

1. Associate Dean, International Programme and Collaboration division (24^th February 2020- 16^th May 2025)

Key contributions :

 (i) Successful in Securing 14 Erasmus mobility for BITS students with KTH and Malardalen ,Sweden. Completely funded air travel and 900 euros monthly stipend.

(ii) Motivating and Convincing the Students from KTH, Sweden, Polytechnic Di Milan and other

European universities to visit Goa Campus on semester exchange

(iii)  Secured funding as PI for Collaboration for net-zero emission targets of Sweden and India - Higher education institutions approach Value: SEK 150,000 (12.2Lakhs). Duration: 1 year Funding Agency: STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education)

(iv) Organised Program Advisory Committee -OEB meeting Animal Sciences January 10th to 11th 2023. (15 lakhs)) (Department of Science and Technology, Govt of India)

(v)) Organised SRG-NPDF Expert Committee meeting – Life Sciences during 22-24 September, 2022 (21 lakhs 10 thousand) (Department of Science and technology, Govt of India)

(vi) Secured Project entitled Empowering the workforce to gain critical employability in electric vehicle technologies through Indo-UK bilateral partnership undergoing global partnership. 20th Dec 2024 – Jan 2026.29,385 GBP ( 29 lakhs,thirty eight thousand) with Colleagues from Pilani Campus Prof Tribeni Roy and Prof Hitesh Mathur.

2. Member Teaching learning Centre, Lead Pedagogy Research Goa campus (2018-2022)

Introduced the concept of research on Pedagogy research in Goa Campus and funded

many project on pedagogy through TLC budget.

3.Head of the Department Biological Sciences, Pilani Campus:Sept1^st2014-Aug 31^st2016.

The major contribution was to convince the BITS management and raise the budget of

the department by approximately five fold which helped us to multiply many

instruments. The impact is evident now. One of the key architect for Proposing Central

Instrumentation facility and convincing Prof VS Rao to have one at each campuses

along with other colleagues. DST-FIST Level-I (2012-2017) : Total grant 50.0 Lakhs

(Implementation and  mid term review in Bangalore as HoD) (ii) UGC-DRS-SAP (Phase-II,

2013-2018) : Total grant 70.75 Lakhs. Organised BCGGR (BITS Conference on gene and genome

regulation) to showcase our research strength to Indian academia and research. The event was

attended by four national serving Directors. Lead the effort to procure high end instrument for the department

4. Founder Faculty Incharge Teaching & Learning Centre, Pilani Campus, BITS Pilani (September 1^st 2015-August 31^st 2016).

Formulation of policy documents for TLC, Getting Physical infrastructure in library for TLC, budgets for Teaching Learning Centre, Awareness regarding teaching pedagogy among Colleagues.

5. Nucleus member, Placement division BITS, Pilani and Pfac member Biological Sciences ( 2010-2014)

Education :

PhD from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, in Biotechnology 2005 worked at National Botanical Research Institute.

Dissertation Title : Studies on interaction between cis  acting upstream sequences in  regulation  of  gene  expression  in  plants.

Master of Agricultural Sciences ( Specialization in Genetics and Plant Breeding ) , Institute of Agricultural Sciences , Banaras Hindu University, BHU, Varanasi ,India with 78 percent marks in the year 2000.

Bachelor of Agricultural Sciences ( Specialization  in Genetics  and Plant Breeding), Institute of Agricultural Sciences , Banaras Hindu University, BHU, Varanasi ,India with 79.3 percent marks in the year 1998.

Research experience:

Post doctoral fellow : Graduate School of Bio studies, Kyoto University, Japan

I worked on finding the mitotic function of topoisomerase II using genetical tools and time lapse microscopy of living yeast cell (S. pombe).

Doctoral Dissertation : Computational analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana  genome database to identify the configurations in which the cis  regulatory elements ACGT or GTGGTTAG exists in plant genes were done. Several  combinations  of  these elements were artificially synthesized and fused upstream to a minimal promoter system which contained the gus A reporter gene. Various activator module was bombarded on to the tobacco leaves and the reporter assay was done. Stable transgenic plant carrying these activator module fused to the reporter system was made. Various elicitors  experiments were performed using SA and ABA. An effort was made to identify stress responsive cis elements in plants.

Since 2007, I am faculty in BITS, Pilani Served in various capacities as lecturer, Asst Professor, Associate Professor and presently serving as Professor.

Selected publications:

Selected Publications: ( Total 75 publications)

1. Namitha Naik,Sandhya Mehrotra,Arti Karamchandani, Diana Santelia and Rajesh Mehrotra Recent advances in designing synthetic plant regulatory modules. Plant Sci., 02 April 2025. Plant Systems and Synthetic Biology Volume 16 – 2025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2025.1567659
2. Namitha Naik, Rajesh Mehrotra and Sandhya Mehrotra: The N-region sequence context impacts the chloroplast import efficiency of multi-TMD protein. Plant Mol Biol.2024 Aug 2;114(4):88.doi: 10.1007/s11103-024-01485-2
3. Snehalata Bhadouriya, Arti Karamchandani, Namitha Naik, Snadhya Mehrotra and Rajesh Mehrotra. Artificially designed synthetic promoter for a high level of salt induction using a cis-engineering approach. Scientific Reports volume 14, Article number: 13657 (2024)
4. Zaiba H Khan, Siddhant Dang, Mounil B Memeya, Snela L. Bhadouriya, Sandhya Mehrotra and Rajesh Mehrotra Genome-wide analysis of AAAG and ACGT cis- elements in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals their involvement with genes downregulated under jasmonic acid response in an orientation independent manner is acceptable Genes,Genomes and Genetics (G3),2022,Jkac057  Featured Article
5. P Dhatterwal, S Mehrotra, AJ Miller, Ravi Aduri, Rajesh Mehrotra, Effect of ACGT motif in spatiotemporal regulation of AtAVT6D, which improves tolerance to osmotic stress and nitrogen-starvation,2022 Plant Molecular Biology.
6. P Dhatterwal, S Mehrotra, AJ Miller, Rajesh Mehrotra, "Promoter profiling of Arabidopsis amino acid transporters: clues for improving crops.  Plant Molecular Biology, 2021 1-25; https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-021-01193-1
7. Bhadouriya S,Abhishek ,S,Himanshu G, Sandhya Mehrotra Divya G and Rajesh Mehrotra  "In Silico analysis of CCGAC and CATGTG cis-regulatory elements across genomes reveals their roles in gene regulation under stress" 2021 vol 22  353-62. Current Genomics.
8. Snehlata Bhadouriya, Sandhya Mehrotra, Mahesh Basantani ,Gary Loake and Rajesh Mehrotra : Role of chromatin architecture in plant stress responses: An update Front. Plant Sci., 12 January 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.603380
9. Zaiba Hasan Khan,Swati Agarwal, Atul Rai, Mounil Binal Memaya,Sandhya Mehrotra and Rajesh Mehrotra: Coexpression Network analysis of PP2A genes with stress responsive genes in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals 13 key regulators. Nature Scientific Reports 2020 Dec 8;10(1):21480. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-77746-z.
10. Pinky Dhatterwal,Samyadeep Basu, Sandhya Mehrotra Rajesh Mehrotra Genome wide analysis of W box element in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals TGAC motif with genes down regulated by heat and salinity( Nature Scientific reports) 2019 Feb 8;9(1):1681. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-38757-7.
11. Rajesh Mehrotra, Kaushik Renganaath, Harsh Kanodia, Gary J Loake, Sandhya Mehrotra" Towards combinatorial transcriptional engineering " Biotechnology Advances 2017. ( doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2017.03.006)
12. Vandana Tomar, Gurpreet Kaur Sidhu, Panchsheela Nogia, Rajesh Mehrotra, Sandhya Mehrotra;" Regulatory components of carbon  concentrating mechanisms in aquatic unicellular photosynthetic organisms (2017)" Plant Cell Rep. DOI 10.1007/s00299-017-2191-3.
13. Purva Bhalothia, Chetna Sangwan,Anshu Alok,Sandhya Mehrotra and Rajesh Mehrotra (2016) PP2C-like promoter and its deletion variants are induced by ABA but not by MeJA and SA in Arabidopsis thaliana. Frontiers in Plant Sci. 03 May 2016 |http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.00547
14. N Nakazawa, R Mehrotra, O Arakawa, M Yanagida (2016) ICRF‐193, an anticancer topoisomerase II inhibitor, induces arched telophase spindles that snap, leading to a ploidy increase in fission yeast  Genes to Cells 21 (9), 978-993.(Equal contributing author)
15. Swarna kanchan, Rajesh Mehrotra, Shibashish chowdhary: Phylogenetic analysis of Endonuclease III protein family identifies key residues and processes during evolution :2015, Journal of Molecular evolution,81:54-67.
16. Rajesh Mehrotra, Purva Bhalothia, Prashali Bansal, Mahesh K Basantani, Vandana Bharti and Sandhya Mehrotra*: Abscisic acid and abiotic stress tolerance - different tiers of regulation. Journal of Plant physiology (2014) 171:486–496.
17. Rajesh Mehrotra, Ipshita Zutsi, Sachin Sethi, Purva Bhalothia, Sandhya Mehrotra (2013). Patterns and evolution of ACGT repeat cis element landscape across four plant genomes.http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/14/203/abstract.BMC Genomics, 14:203.
18. Soumya Bhattacharjee, Kaushik Renganaath, Mehrotra, Rajesh Mehrotra, Sandhya Mehrotra* (2013): Combinatorial control of gene expression. Biomed Research International. Article Id 407263,11 pages.(doi.org/10.1155/2013/407263).
19. )Rajesh Mehrotra, Gauri Gupta, Riccha Sethi, Narayan Kumar and Sandhya Mehrotra (2011) Designer promoter: An artwork of cis Plant Mol. Biol., Vol. 75 (6) 527-536.
20. Sandhya Mehrotra, Prabodh K. Trivedi, Ajay Sethuraman and Rajesh Mehrotra (2011) The rbcL gene of Populus deltoides has multiple transcripts and is redox-regulated in vitro. Journal of Plant Physiology. 168:466-473.
21. Norihiko Nakazawa, Rajesh Mehrotra, Masahiru Ebe and Mitsuhiro Yanagida (2011) Condensin phosphorylated by the Aurora-B-like kinase Ark-1 is continuously required until telophase in a mode distinct from Top2. Journal of Cell Science ., 124 (11) :1795-807.
22. Rajesh Mehrotra and Sandhya Mehrotra (2010) Promoter activation by ACGT in response to salicylic acid and abscisic acids is differentially regulated by the spacing between two copies of the motif. Journal of Plant Physiology. 167: 1214–1218.
23. Samir V Sawant, Kanti Kiran, Rajesh Mehrotra, Chandra Prakash Chaturvedi, Suriya Anjum Ansari, Pratibha Singh, Niraj Lodhi and Rakesh Tuli (2005) A variety of synergistic and antagonistic interactions mediated by cis acting DNA motifs regulate gene expression in plant cells and modulate stability of the transcription complex formed on a basal promoter,. J .Exp .Botany. 56 2345-2353.

Book Chapters/ Books:

1.Biologic gates and their application. Springer nature (2026) In press

2.Plant Elicitor Peptides: New Tool for Sustainable Agriculture(Book ) Edited by Shachi Singh and Rajesh Mehrotra (2024) Springer

3.A book chapter Application of omics technologies in tropical and sub tropical fruit crops Omics in horticultural crops (1978-0-32-89905-5) 2022 published by Elsevier.

4.Primer Designing for Amplifying an AT-Rich Promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. PCR Primer Design Pages 115-12 Publisher Humana, Year of Publication 2022. New York, NY.

5. Biological sequestrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide with strategies to enhance storage of the gas. Year of Publication 2020 ISBN 9781789243277 DOI 10.1079/9781789243277.0044 Editor(s) Woo, P. T. K., Leong, J. A., Buchmann, K. Book Climate change and infectious fish diseases.
6. TGAC and GT  Cis elements : Genomic distribution and role in Plants. Lambert Academic Publishing (2017) (Book)

7.Contributed questions for 10 book chapters in Biochemistry Concepts and application by Appling (Global edition) Pearson  (2016)

8.Rajesh Mehrotra, U Balasubramanyam, Purva Bhalothia, Bhavya Ravi and Sandhya Mehrotra: Biotechnological interventions to combat abiotic stress in Plants. Lap Lambert Academic Publishing Ag & Co. Kg, Dudweller Landstr, Germany.

9.Bhavya Ravi, Madhulika Rai, Sandhya Mehrotra and Rajesh Mehrotra. 2011. Lipase catalyzed transesterification reaction for biodiesel production: Current status and future prospects. Nova Press ,USA. Edited by Dhingra, PN Jha.

Patents

1. Inducible promoters in plants (Filed in 2022); Rajesh Mehrotra, Snehalata; Sandhya Mehrotra; Application No. 202211057338
2. 2007 Tuli R, Vishwanath SS, Chaturvedi CP, Kiran K, Mehrotra R, Artificial bidirectional promoter for activation of gene expression (USA, Patent No. 2005/0223421A1 Publication date Oct.6,2005;US 7,235,652 B2 granted on Jun. 26, 2007).
3. 2005 Tuli R, VishwanathSS, Chaturvedi CP, KiranK,Mehrotra R;Artificial bidirectional promoter for activation of gene expression (PCT/IN2003/000442 publication No., WO2005063993A1) also published as CN188651DA, CN188651DB, DE60334329D1, EP170207DA1 and EP1702070B1.

PhD thesis Supervised: 5.  6 students are pursuing presently(2 more to join under recently sanctioned ANRF project and BITS-LaTrobe agreement.

1. Purva Bhalothia : Thesis title: Cloning and characterisation of Protein phosphatise 2C like promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana
2. Zaiba Hasan Khan : Thesis title "Genome-Wide Analysis of AAAG-ACGT Cis-Elements across Plant Genomes and Its in silico Characterization Using Protein Phosphatase 2A (PP2A) Promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana.
3. Pinky: Functional characterization of an amino acid transmembrane transporter(ATAVT6D) from Arabidopsis
4. Sneha Bhadouriya: Designing, Synthesis and Validation of a Salinity Stress responsive promoters in plants
5. Namitha Nayak “ Elucidating the role of the N-region in chloroplast IEM targeting of heterologous multi TMD proteins”.
6. 12 Masters dissertation has been been supervised by me.
7. More than 125 students have done Study oriented Project/Computer oriented project/Laboratory oriented project /Design oriented project under my guidance which resulted in more than 35 international publications with them.

Awards  and  Honours :

1. Recipient of high Level Visiting Fellowship of French Government, SSHN 2025.
2. Admitted as Fellow to the Royal society of Biology (2024)
3. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Distinguished Professor & Researcher Award 2023 in Plant Genetics and Biotechnology
4. Dr Rajesh Mehrotra received Dr CR Mitra best faculty award 2021 instituted by Prof VS Rao foundation. It comes with a plaque and a cash prize of Rs 100000.The award was announced on 5^th Sept 2022.
5. Recipient of Indian National Science Academy Bilateral exchange award to visit University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2016)
6. Visiting Scientist Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology June-July 2015(Japan Science and Technology Ministry)
7. Rajesh Mehrotra received international travel award of DST 2014 for attending the conference in Dublin Ireland.
8. Visiting Foreign Scientist Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, ( July-Dec 2013).
9. Among 73 finalist out of 5641 nominations in Pearson Teaching award 2013.
10. Chair the session in ICERT conference held in Malaysia 2012 in Penang (May 30th June 1st).
11. Visiting Foreign Scientist Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, (June -July 2012)
12. Fellow Society of Applied Biotechnology, 2011.
13. Visiting Foreign Scientist Louisiana State University Feb -August 2011.
14. Visiting Foreign Scientist Kyoto University, May 30th 2009 –June 30th 2009 (Japanese Science and Technology Ministry)
15. Visiting Foreign Scientist Kyoto University, Dec 15th 2008 –Jan 15th 2009 (Japanese Science and Technology Ministry)
16. Visiting Foreign Scientist Kyoto University, June 1st 2008–July 25th 2008(Japanese Science and Technology Ministry)
17. DST young Scientist Project was awarded (2008).
18. Best poster award at the conference, Emerging trends in Biological Sciences, organized by Dept. of Biotechnology and microbiology, Hindustan College of Arts & Science, Coimbatore India on Aug. 18th-19th 2005.
19. Council of scientific and Industrial research, Government of India, Senior research fellow 2002-2005.
20. Council of scientific and Industrial research, Government of India, Junior research fellow 2000-2002.
21. Qualified Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) National Examination Test in Genetics in 2002.
22. Qualified Graduate Aptitude test in Engineering (2001).All India rank 84.
23. All India topper in the Entrance test conducted by Banaras Hindu university (1998-99).

       GOI sponsored Grant PI and COPI As PI

1. Mitigation of salt stress by overexpression of OsALT7 in rice.ANRF .1st April 2025 till 31st March 2028. 42.05696 lakhs.
2. Deciphering the molecular circuits of seed weight regulation for improved plant productivity SPARC. 01/04/24-31/03/2026. 85.2 lakhs
3. Ensuring food security through AI and satellite imagingTechnology assisted Robust Agriculture at Scale.09/05/2024-31/03/2025 Ministry of education.1.98 crore. The project had Pixel and IFFCO Kissan as industry partner.(Prof Navneet Goyal from Pilani is the Coordinator)
4. Deciphering gene co expression network of salinity stress responsive genes. 09/01/23— 08/1/26 SERB, 6.60 lakhs
5. Natural and Engineered Lipases for Biodiesel Production. Funded by Aditya Birla Group of companies (Completed in october 2013., 10 Lakhs)
6. Cloning and characterization of protein phosphatase 2C like promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. DST Fast track project for young scientists (Completed in october 2012. 12.57 lakhs)
7. Cloning of spot blotch disease resistance gene in wheat in collaboration with CIMMYT (2018).CIMMYYT,Mexico.15lakhs

As CoPI

8. Co Principal investigator in Introducing cyanobacterial bicarbonate transport into C3 Plants for enhanced photosynthetic performance. Funded by Department of Science and Technology (37.8 lakhs) Sanctioned 23rd January 2017.
9. Molecular characterization of ACC (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate) deaminase activity of associative bacteria isolated from plants of desert of Rajasthan. Funded by DBT (42 lakhs Completed in March 2015)
10. Designing, Synthesis,Validation of dehydration stress responsive promoter.Funded by UGC 12.88 lakhs.( Completed in March 2016)
11. Developing suitable pedagogical methods for various classes, intellectual calibres and research in e-learning "National Mission Project on Education through ICT Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India" Course developer for Science of living systems.(Total Project cost Rs 17 crore, Completed in March 2017)

As Associate Dean IPCD

1. As PI Title of the Project: Collaboration for net-zero emission targets of Sweden and India - Higher education institutions approach Value: SEK 150,000 (12.2Lakhs). Duration: 1 year Funding Agency: STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) Status: Completed.
2. Program Advisory Committee -OEB meeting Animal Sciences January 10th to 11th 2023. (15 lakhs)) (Department of Science and Technology
3. SRG-NPDF Expert Committee – Life Sciences during 22-24 September, 2022 (21 lakhs 10 thousand) (Department of Science and technology)
4. Empowering the workforce to gain critical employability in electric vehicle technologies through Indo-UK bilateral partnership undergoing global partnership. 20th Dec 2024 – Jan 2026.29,385 GBP ( 29 lakhs,thirty eight thousand).
5. Erasmus plus mobility application with KTH Sweden and malardalen was successful 2024- 27. 14 student mobilities Completely funded air travel and @900 euros per month)

As HoD , Pilani Campus (2014-2016)

• DST-FIST Level-I (2012-2017) : Total grant 50.0 Lakhs (Presented mid term review in Banglaore as HoD)
• (ii) UGC-DRS-SAP (Phase-II, 2013-2018) : Total grant 70.75 Lakhs

Industry sponsored grant:

1. Natural and Engineered Lipases for Biodiesel Production. Funded by Aditya Birla Group of companies (Completed in october 2013., 10 Lakhs)

Courses taught at BITS,Pilani:

Plant Physiology, Plant Biotechnology , General Biology ,Measurement techniques/Biology Laboratory, Genetics, BiologicalChemistry, Molecular evolution, Ecology, Cell Biology, Professional Practice I/Research Practice I,Professional Practice II/Research Practice II,Computer Oriented Project/Study Oriented Project/Laboratory Oriented Project.

• I developed the course of Molecular evolution and took the senate approval to run it.

Invited Talks : 30

• ATAVT6 family of amino acid transporters as a target for crop improvement :A comparative Genomics and metabolomics tale: 17^th July 2025.ETH Zurich.
• ATAVT6 family of amino acid transporters as a target for crop improvement :A comparative Genomics and metabolomics tale.46^th Annual meeting of Plant tissue culture Association of India and symposium on current trends and challenges in Plant Biotechnology (24-26^th feb 2025), Goa.
• ATAVT6 family of amino acid transporters as a target for crop improvement :A comparative Genomics and metabolomics tale 16^th and 17^th Jan 2025 ,Goa University.
• ACGT cis regulatory elements in Plant gene regulation: AtAVT6D, an amino acid transporter as a case study. Symposium on Plant Biology and Functional Genomics (ISPBFG 2024)from March 13 to 15, 2024,University of Hyderabad.
• Comparative genomics of ACGT cis regulatory elements reveals ATAVT6 family of aminoacid transporters as a target for crop improvement.National Symposium to foster advances and innovations in crop improvement.PAU ,Ludhiana Feb 27-29 2024.
• AtAVT6 family of amino acid transporters of Arabidopsis thaliana as target for Crop improvement with emphasis on ACGT cis regulatory elements.RYIM 2024 Jan 18-20 BITS,Pilani.
• ATAVT6 family of aminoacid transporters in Arabidopsis thaliana as target for crop improvement.National Conference on Plant Physiology December 9-11,2023.
• AtAVT6 family of amino acid transporters of A. thaliana as target for crop improvement 19th dec 2022,PAU Ludhiana
• Designing, synthesizing and validation of salinity stress responsive promoter in plants 20th dec 2022, Punjab Agriculture university, Ludhiana
• Differential regulation of promoter activation governed by ACGT cis -regulatory elements 20th ,Dec 2022,Punjab Agriculture university
• AtAVT6 family of amino acid transporters of Arabidopsis thaliana as target for Crop Improvement “2nd Edition of Global Conference on Agriculture and Horticulture” (Agri 2022) during September 01-03, 2022. France
• Promoter activation by ACGT cis regulatry elements is diffentially regulated by spacing between the copies of the motifs on 27th October 2022 in                  Calicut university.
• Prof Rajesh Mehrotra was a co chair in “40th World Conference on Applied Science Engineering And Technology (40th - WCASET)” held on 30and             31st Dec. 2021 in Goa.

• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered an invited talk in International conference on Genomics and breeding for crop improvement on 4th -6th dec 2019.The title of the talk was ACGT cis regulatory elements in plant gene expression: A comparative Genomics Perspectives
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered a talk entitled Chromatin architecture in different stress responses at department of Molecular Plant Science, on 26th june University of  Edinburgh, UK.
• Rajesh Mehortra delivered a plenary talk entitled ACGT element and its role in stress tolerance at Saurashtra university on 26th February,2019.
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered a talk in 9th Seed congress on February 19th -21st,2019.The title of the talk was Seed storage protein gene regulation a jigsaw puzzle at BHU ,Varanasi.
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered a talk in IIIE Goa chapter on the topic Green revolution on 28th January 2019 in Goa college of Engineering.
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered a talk on How to design smart question paper in 3rd National Teacher’s congress,3rd Jan -6th Jan2019,Pune
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered an invited talk in Life scienceresearch and its interface with engineering and allied sciences (Nov-3),2018 at BITS,Pilani,Pilani Campus.
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered a talk  entitled Scientific writing: pleasure and pain : A personal experience on 24/3/2018
• Delivered a talk as plenary speaker .The title of the talk was" Genomic analysis of cis regulatory element and its validation in model plant Arabidopsis thaliana reveals spacer distance between ACGT cis elements governs differential gene expression in response to salicylic acid and abscissic acid  in Multidisciplinary international conference on green earth:A panoramic view in    B.N.Bandodkar college of science ,Mumbai (12-13 Jan 2018).
• Delivered a talk entitled Learning to teach and teaching to Learn by TLC Pilani on 10/9/2017
• Spacer distance between ACGT element is responsible for differential gene expression ; An invited lecture in 'International workshop to develop climate resilient cereals'' November 3-5, 2016, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
• Spacer distance between ACGT cis regulatory elements governs differential gene expression in model plant Arabidopsis thaliana in "Recent Advances in Biological Sciences, Biotechnology and Sustainable Development", during 18-19 March 2016. Udaipur.
• Rajesh Mehrotra delivered an invited talk in Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology in Institute of Ag Sciences,Banaras Hindu University.The title of the talk is " Promoter activation by ACGT in response to salicylic acid and abscisic acids is differentially regulated by the spacing between two copies of the motif" in 2014
• Nobel laureate Prof Aaron Ciechanover was interviewed by Prof Rajesh Mehrotra, Professor ofBiological Science, BITS Pilani, on 29th November 2012 at the Institute. Click the link : http://youtu.be/vRDZaub5VYw
• Invited talk on Teaching Pedagogy in Shivalik college of engineering, Dehradun on 23rd december 2012.
• Gave a invited talk in Navodyala Vidyalaya in 2011. In Pursuit of Science.
• Rajesh Mehrotra Title of the talk : In Pursuit of Science : 19th National Children science congress under face to face interaction session organized by DST, Rajasthan held at Jaipur from 27th to 31st december 2011.
• Rajesh Mehrotra Title of the talk: From green revolution to gene technology. An invited talk in Faculty development programme on technological waste : a potential threat to survival.Nov 16-28,2009 sponsered by All India council of technical education.
• Rajesh Mehrotra, Swapnil, Jitendra Panwar. Global Warming: A Monster in Action. An invited talk presented in Glowar-08 held on March 5th 2008 in Bikaner.

Interntional Visits apart from Post doctoral tenure :

Visiting Foreign Scientist Kyoto University, June 1^st 2008–July 25^th 2008, Sponsored by JST

Visiting Foreign Scientist Kyoto University, Dec 15^th 2008  –Jan 15^th 2009,JST

Visiting Foreign Scientist Kyoto University, May 30^th  2009  –June 30th 2009,JST

Visiting Foreign Scientist Louisiana State University Feb 2011-July 2011.(Six months)

Visiting Scientist Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, June -july 2012.

Visiting Researcher Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, July 1^st 2014 December 2014 (Six months)

Visiting Foreign Scientist Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, June- July 2015.

Recepient of Indian National Science Academy  Bilateral exchange award to visit University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2016)

Reviewer and academic editor of the journal

I am the reviewer for the Journal of Molecular catalysis, American Oil chemistry society, Plant Molecular Biology, Plant Molecular Biology Reporter, Academic Press Journals.Academic editor for Plos One, Plant Journal, Journal of Genetics, Nature Scientific reports, Plant Biotechnology journal.

Other responsibilities

1. Senate member BITS Pilani (2014onwards)
2. Member, Institute Biosafety committee, BITS,Pilani (2012-2015)
3. Member, Departmental research committee (2012-2016),Chairman 2014-16
4. Member, Department committee on academics (2012-2016), chairman 2014-16.
5. Task force 15 member Vision 2020 and mission 2012 team.(Implementation of ERP)
6. Convener, Department committee on academics (September 2016 to Dec 2017)
7. Nucleus member Placement division BITS,Pilani 2009-2014.
8. Placement faculty (Pfac), Department of Biological Sciences BITS,Pilani ,(2010-2014)
9. Library Committee member, Department of Biological Sciences,BITS,Pilani (2012-2013).
10. Convener, BITS Conference on gene and genome regulation (BCGGR-2016) February 18-20 2016.
11. Member organizing committee Molecular Techniques: Cell to DNA (MTCD-2014) workshop during April 10-12, 2014.
12. Member organizing committee, Molecular International Conference on "Nascent Developments in Chemical Sciences: Opportunities for Academia-Industry Collaboration" (NDCS-2015) was organized by the Department during October 16-18, 2015.
13. Organizing committee member, International Symposium on Applied Phycology and Environmental Biotechnology, Oct 29 – 31, 2007, BITS-Pilani, Rajasthan, India.
14. Convener, Bilateral workshop between BITS,Pilani and Tel Aviv university on Food security and safety held on 21-22nd Nov 2016.
15. Co Convener in 'Current Trends and Challenges in Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology'.2020 Nov 20-21.
16. IPCD organized global meet entitled Computational Modeling and Simulation: Recent Innovations, Challenges & Perspectivesduring October 16-November 07, 2020.
17. Member,task force mission 2018 and member project Lakshya (faculty recruitment team)

Successfully completed certificate in leadership in Education, Advocacy, and Policy development programme for Senior Academic administrators (11^thAug 2025 to 20^th jan 2026) from BITS,Pilani.