My research interest is in increasing the plant productivity to provide adequate food and nutrition to the global population that is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. As growing population and global climatic changes place increasing pressure on the world’s food supply, it is essential that we continue to improve crop performance in terms of grain productivity to keep pace with population growth. Rice, a key staple food, need to increase the yield by at least 60% to feed the globe. But, rice requires lot of water to grow, about two and a half times the amount of water needed to grow a crop of wheat or maize. One estimate says that all the rice land receives 35–45% of all the world’s irrigation water. Thus, rice is often portrayed as a “profligate” user of water.

Recently an attempt is underway to increase the rice grain productivity as well as the yield potential by genetic engineering. If C3 crop can be converted to C4 photosynthesis, its yield would increase by 50% while using half the water. C3 plants can capture and store a theoretical maximum of 4.6% of the energy received in sunlight, whereas C4 plants could theoretically capture 6% thereby addressing global warning in their own way. My work on genetically transformation of C3 plant (i.e. Arabidopsis and Rice) into single cell C4 plants has greatly been appreciated in the light of changing world which will require higher photosynthetic efficiency and less water consumption for our plants (Kandoi et al., 2016). I have overexpressed individually and in combination of two cDNA for all the gene of C4 pathway in a model C3 plant Arabidopsis thaliana to achieve higher photosynthetic efficiency and tolerance to salinity and drought stress. Dr Deepika Kandoi has peer reviewed 9 publications and participated in numerous international forums.