Dr. Donald James’s research focuses on utilising sustainable biotechnologies to improve the health and productivity of forests. His broad area of research interests includes the molecular basis of stress adaptation in forest plant species; plant microbial interactions and metagenomics; endophyte-plant interaction in forest trees; utilizing conventional and new breeding techniques (NBTs) including marker-assisted selection, genomic selection and genome editing for improvement of planted trees and medicinal species; bioprospection and synthetic biology for sustainable production of high value-secondary metabolites. His work has garnered attention in academic and scientific communities for its originality and practical relevance.

KFRI is immensely proud of his achievement and confident he will continue to make groundbreaking contributions.