Frontiers in Entomopathogenic Fungi: Diversity, Ecology and Bioprospects

Sunil Kumar Deshmukh is a Scientific Advisor to Greenvention Biotech, Uruli Kanchan, Pune, India, and AGPharmBioinnovations LLP, Patiala, Punjab, India. He is a veteran industrial mycologist who spent a substantial part of his career in drug discovery at Hoechst Marion Roussel Limited [now Sanofi India Ltd.], Mumbai, and Piramal Enterprises Limited, Mumbai. He has also served at the TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Centre, New Delhi, and as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Deakin University, Australia. He has to his credit 8 patents, 156 publications, and 26 books on various aspects of fungi and natural products of microbial origin. He is the president of the Association of Fungal Biologists (AFB) and a past president of the Mycological Society of India (MSI). Dr. Deshmukh is Managing Editor of Mycological Spectrum, the official Journal of Association of Fungal Biologists. He has approximately four decades of research experience dealing with bioactives from fungi, including keratinophilic fungi. He has approximately four decades of research experience in getting bioactives from fungi and various aspects of keratinophilic fungi.

Kandikere R. Sridhar is an adjunct professor (Department of Biosciences, Mangalore University, India) and a visiting professor (NITTE Deemed to be University, Mangalore, India). His research areas are the Diversity and Ecology of Fungi of the Western Ghats and maritime habitats. He was an NSERC fellow and visiting professor at Mount Allison University, Canada; the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research at UFZ and Martin Luther University, Germany; and the Centre of Biology, University of Minho, Portugal. He was a recipient of the Dr. Shome Memorial Award (2004), Vice President (2013), President (2018), and Lifetime Achievement Awardee (2019) of the Mycological Society of India. He is a Fellow of the Indian Mycological Society, Kolkata (2014), Distinguished Asian Mycologist (2015), and Outstanding Leader in Education and Research, Association of Agricultural Technology, Bangkok (2016). He was a UGC-BSR Faculty Fellow (2014-2017) and in the top 2% of scientists in the field of mycology (2020-2025). He has published over 600 research papers, edited 20 books, reviewed over 200 research articles, 25 project proposals, 12 book proposals, and evaluated 25 PhD theses (Australia, India, Mauritius, and Thailand).

Gurmeet Kour Bali is presently working as a senior project associate in the Department of Microbial Type Culture Collection (MTCC), CSIR-IMTECH, Chandigarh, India. Dr. Bali held the position of assistant professor in the Department of Zoology, DAV University, Jalandhar, India. She graduated with Master of Philosophy in Zoology from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Zoology, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. Her expertise is in the field of entomopathogenic fungal diversity and its efficacy against insect pests, and its application as a biocontrol agent. Her work was published in the reputed journals, including ＂Scientific Data＂. Dr. Bali also presented her paper at the ＂SOL2023 International Solanaceae Genome Conference,＂ conducted by the Department of Plant Sciences at McGill University, Canada. She has attended many ICAR and DST workshops in the fields of mycology and entomology, giving an edge to her research work. She has seven national and international research papers to her credit.

Belle Damodara Shenoy is a distinguished fungal taxonomist and Senior Principal Scientist at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Regional Centre Visakhapatnam, India, with Ph.D. (2007, University of Hong Kong) and postdoctoral training in Canada. His research spans marine mycology, environmental biotechnology, and fungal ecology, most notably microbial degradation of marine pollutants, trace-metal impacts on fungal diversity, and discovery of bioactive marine fungi. With over 50 peer-reviewed publications, he is recognized internationally for advancing fungal taxonomy and microbial ecology. As Managing Editor of MycoAsia Journal of Modern Mycology, and Associate Editor for multiple journals, he plays a leading role in shaping scholarship in fungal and marine microbiology. Dr. Shenoy’s unique combination of expertise in rigorous taxonomy, applied environmental science, editorial leadership, and his dedicated regional focus on the Global South contributes significantly to advancing scientific knowledge and fostering collaboration in these critical areas.