Dr. T. S. Lokeswari is a Professor (Retd.) from the Department of Biotechnology at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed University), Chennai. She brings over 14 years of experience as a research scientist, 12 years as an academic researcher, and 7 years in academic administration, with a strong commitment to developing creative, progressive, and digitally enabled solutions in biotechnology. Her research spans plant biotechnology and molecular biology, with major contributions to clonal propagation of crops and medicinal plants, including coffee, banana, rose, and over 20 other species. She has also worked extensively on the bioactivity of phytochemicals, particularly antimicrobial, antifungal, and wound-healing properties. Her work in chiral biotransformation demonstrated highly efficient asymmetric reduction using in vitro carrot cell systems. Dr. Lokeswari has developed sensitive PCR-based methods (AFLP and ISSR) to assess genetic variation in clonal plants and pioneered molecular diagnostics for Banana Bunchy Top Virus, including a patented AuNP probe assay. This technology received national recognition and led to a Technology Day Award from the Ministry of Science & Technology and DBT for providing virus indexing of tissue-cultured banana plants as a service.
