Ph.D. (2010-2016): NRCPB, IARI Pusa Campus, New Delhi-110012.
M.Sc. (2008-2010): NRCPB, IARI Pusa Campus, New Delhi-110012.
B.Sc. (2004-2008): College of Agriculture, Kolhapur, M.P.K.V. Rahuri university
Research Interest
Development of haploid inducer line in Brassica juncea and Brassica oleracea through genetic engineering of CENH3 gene
Genome editing in Brassica juncea
Understanding Brassica-Orobanche interaction for developing Orobanche resistance in B. juncea
Awards & Honors
IARI Merit Medal award for Ph.D. research in 2017
ICAR-SRF (2012) for Ph.D.
ICAR-JRF (2008) for M.Sc.
Watts A.,Bhadouria J, Kumar V & Bhat SR. (2016). Assessment of Arabidopsis thaliana CENH3 promoter in Brassica juncea for development of haploid inducer lines Indian Journal of Experimental Biology. 54:425-430
Watts A, Kumar V, Bhat SR. (2016). Centromeric histone H3 protein: from basic study to plant breeding applications J. Plant Biochem. Biotechnol.DOI 10.1007/s13562-016-0368-4
Naresh V, Singh SK, Watts A, Kumar P, Kumar V, Rao KRSS, Bhat SR(2016). Mutations in the mitochondrial orf108 render Moricandia arvensis restorer ineffective in restoring male fertility to Brassica oxyrrhina-based cytoplasmic male sterile line of B. juncea. Mol Breeding 36:67 DOI 10.1007/s11032-016-0489-4
Watts A, Kumar V, Raipuria RK., Bhattacharya R.C. 2018. In Vivo Haploid Production in Crop Plants: Methods and Challenges. Plant Mol Biol Rep. 36: 685-695
Sharma P, Watts A, Kumar V, Srinivasan R, Siwach P. 2018. Cloning, characterization, and expression analysis of APETALA2 genes of Brassica juncea (L.) Czern. Ind. J. Exp. Biol. 56: 604-610.
Malhotra EV, Watts A, Watts A, Kumar, NR, Singh S, MISHRA P, Saini RP, Karthik K, Singh S, Maniraj R, Muralimohan N, Arulprakash T, Tyagi S, Pattanayak D & Sreevathsa R. 2017. Targeted Genome Engineering by CRISPR/Cas9: The New Perspective of Functional Genomics. In: Functional Genomics: Novel Insights, Applications and Future Challenges (Uffe H & Philip O, eds. ), pp 35-66, nova science publisher