I am focusing on addressing the critical challenge of ensuring food security in the face of climate change, particularly in agricultural regions like Pakistan that are vulnerable to drought, heat stress, and flooding. Our lab focuses on elucidating the metabolic and molecular mechanisms of plant stress responses and developing practical, innovative strategies to enhance crop resilience and productivity. In this regard integrating AI for phenotyping and data analysis are critical. A significant part of our work involves metabolic engineering and chemical priming to improve stress tolerance. We have identified that manipulating the NAD salvage pathway, either by overexpressing the NIC3 gene or through the exogenous application of nicotinic acid (NA), significantly enhances drought tolerance and biomass. We are currently working to translate these findings into commercially important crops like cotton.
Furthermore, we discovered that applying simple, low-cost chemicals can prime plants for survival. We demonstrate that ethanol treatment confers remarkable drought tolerance in staple crops like wheat and rice by regulating sugar metabolism and ABA signaling. This finding has led to the establishment of the EGAO initiative for global technology transfer.
Our future work will continue to integrate fundamental and applied science. Key objectives include developing transgenic cotton, screening chemical libraries for new growth-enhancing compounds to biofortify crops and understanding the molecular basis of sustainable practices like organic farming. Through interdisciplinary collaborations in precision agriculture and agrivoltaics, we aim to develop holistic solutions that combine genetic improvements with sustainable farming systems, ultimately enhancing agricultural productivity and improving human well-being.

Keywords: Metabolic regulation, Stress resilience, Drought stress tolerance, Biofortification, Sustainable agriculture, AI for agriculture, Image processing