♣ Molecular basis of sucrose metabolism in sugarcane-Genomics and Transcriptomics approaches.

♣ Metabolic engineering of sugarcane for low Glycaemic sugars-Metabolomics.

♦ Identification and characterization of SWEET genes associated with sugar content and disease susceptibility in sugarcane (DST-SERB; 2023-2025)

♦ National Network Component-Development of Genome Consortium databank from plants and microbial population emerging from India (Collaborative project with IICB, Kolkata, NIPB, New Delhi and University of West Bengal; DBT-2023-2028)

♦ Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Singode, A., Thalambedu, L.P., Athiappan, S., Krishnasamy, M.,Purakkal, S.V., Govind, H., Furtado, A. and Henry, R., 2023. Long read transcriptome sequencing of a sugarcane hybrid and its progenitors, Saccharum officinarum and S. spontaneum. Frontiers in Plant Science, 14.

♦  Surya Krishna, S., Harish Chandar, S.R., Ravi, M., Valarmathi, R., Lakshmi, K., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, Manimekalai, R., Viswanathan, R., Hemaprabha, G. and Appunu, C., 2023. Transgene-Free Genome Editing for Biotic and Abiotic Stress Resistance in Sugarcane: Prospects and Challenges. Agronomy, 13(4), p.1000.

♦  Swathik Clarancia P, Naveenarani M, Ashwin Narayan J, Krishna S S, Thirugnanasambandam P P, Valarmathi R, Suresha G S, Gomathi R, Kumar R A, Manickavasagam M, Jegadeesan R, Arun M, Hemaprabha G and Appunu C 2023 Genome-Wide Identification, Characterization and Expression Analysis of Plant Nuclear Factor (NF-Y) Gene Family Transcription Factors in Saccharum spp. Genes 14 1147 Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes14061147.

♦  Rajarajan, K., Sakshi, S., Taria, S., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Radhakrishna, A., Anuragi, H., Ashajyothi, M., Bharati, A., Handa, A.K. and Arunachalam, A., 2022. Whole plant response of Pongamia pinnata to drought stress tolerance revealed by morpho-physiological, biochemical and transcriptome analysis. Molecular Biology Reports, 49(10), pp.9453-9463.

♦  Senthilkumar, S., Vinod, K. K., Parthiban, S., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Lakshmi Pathy, T., Banerjee, N., … & Govindaraj, P. (2022). Identification of potential MTAs and candidate genes for juice quality-and yield-related traits in Saccharum clones: a genome-wide association and comparative genomic study. Molecular Genetics and Genomics, 297(3), 635- 654.

♦  Banerjee, N., Kumar, S., Singh, A., Annadurai, A., & Thirugnanasambandam, P.P. (2022). Identification of microRNAs involved in sucrose accumulation in sugarcane (Saccharum species hybrid). Plant Gene, 29, 100352.

♦  Selvi, Athiappan, Kaliannan Devi, Ramaswamy Manimekalai, Perumal Thirugnanasambandam P.P, Rabisha Valiyaparambth, and Kasirajan Lakshmi. "High-throughput miRNA deep sequencing in response to drought stress in sugarcane." 3 Biotech 11, no. 7 (2021): 1-18.

♦  Selvi, A., Devi, K., Manimekalai, R. and Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., 2020. Comparative analysis of drought-responsive transcriptomes of sugarcane genotypes with differential tolerance to drought. 3 Biotech, 10, pp.1-14.

♦  Rajarajan, K., Ganesamurthy, K., Raveendran, M., Jeyakumar, P., Yuvaraja, A., Sampath, P., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P and Senthilraja, C., 2021. Differential responses of sorghum genotypes to drought stress revealed by physio-chemical and transcriptional analysis. Molecular Biology Reports, 48, pp.2453-2462.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, Patrick J Mason, Nam V Hoang, Agnelo Furtado, Frederik C Botha, Robert J Henry. 2019 Analysis of the diversity and tissue specificity of sucrose synthase genes in the long read transcriptome of sugarcane. BMC Plant Biology 19 (1), 160.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, Patrick J Mason, Adhini S Pazhany, SenthilKumar Shanmugavel, Nam V Hoang, Robert J Henry.2019. Transcriptome of Sugarcane, a Highly Complex Polyploid. Elsevier

♦  Devi, K., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Gomathi, R., Manimekalai, R., Lakshmi, K. and Selvi, A., 2019. Gene expression profiling in sugarcane genotypes during drought stress and rehydration. Sugar Tech, 21, pp.717-733.

♦  Devi, K., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Gomathi, R., Ramalashmi, K. and Selvi, A., 2018. Physiological and molecular responses of sugarcane genotypes subjected to hypoxia. Journal of Sugarcane Research, 8(1), pp.52-65.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, N.V. Hoang, and R. J. Henry. 2018.The Challenge of Analyzing the Sugarcane Genome. Frontiers in Plant Science., 14 May 2018 |https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.00616

♦  Hoang, N.V., A. Furtado, Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, F. Botha and R. J. Henry.2018. Optimizing de novo assembly and characterizing of the culm-derived meta-transcriptome from the highly polyploid sugarcane genome based on coding transcripts. Heliyon 2018;4(3): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00583

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, N.V. Hoang, A Furtado, F C. Botha and RJ. Henry. 2017. Association of Variation in the Sugarcane Transcriptome with Sugar Content. BMC Genomics; 18:909

♦  Hoang N.V, A Furtado, P.J. Mason, A. Marquardt, L. Kasirajan, Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, FC. Botha and R J. Henry. 2017. A survey of the complex transcriptome from the highly polyploid sugarcane genome using PacBio full-length isoform sequencing compared with de novo assembly from Illumina RNA sequencing. BMC Genomics. 2017;18(1):395 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-017-3757-8

♦  Kasirajan, L., Aruchamy, K., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P. and Athiappan, S., 2017. Molecular cloning, characterization, and expression analysis of lignin genes from sugarcane genotypes varying in lignin content. Applied biochemistry and biotechnology, 181, pp.1270-1282.

♦  Sobhakumari, V.P. and Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., 2016. Isolation of a novel centromere- associated CENH3 gene and its characterization from sugarcane. Journal of Sugarcane Research, 5(2), pp.22-29.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P and Meena, S.A., 2016. Structure based comparative in silico analyses of invertase gene families in sugarcane. Journal of Sugarcane Research, 5(2), pp.30-41.

♦  Raj, P., Selvi, A., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P and Nair, N.V., 2016. Analysis of Genetic Diversity of Saccharum Complex Using Chloroplast Microsatellite Markers (vol 18, pg 141, 2016). SUGAR TECH, 18(2), pp.149-149.

♦  Ramalashmi, K., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Mohanraj, K. and Nair, N.V., 2014. Expression profiling of sucrose metabolizing genes in Saccharum, Sorghum and their hybrids. Applied biochemistry and biotechnology, 174, pp.1510-1519.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P , Suparna, T., Anishma, S., Punnya, R. and Ramalashmi, K., 2014. Cloning and characterization of a differentially regulated invertase inhibitor gene during sucrose accumulation in sugarcane. J Sugarcane Res, 4, pp.21-8.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, Raveendran, M., Kumar, K.K., Rahul, P.R., Kumar, V.G., Viswanathan, R., Sundar, A.R., Malathi, P., Sudhakar, D. and Balasubramaniam, P., 2013. Differential regulation of defense-related gene expression in response to red rot pathogen Colletotrichum falcatum infection in sugarcane. Applied biochemistry and biotechnology, 171, pp.488-503.

♦  Nivetha, L., Nair, N., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P and Selvi, A., 2013. Identification of microsatellite markers for high fibre content in sugarcane. Journal of Sugarcane Research, 3(1), pp.14-19.

♦  Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Suresha, G.S. and Selvi, A., 2011. Expression profiling of genes involved in sucrose metabolism from different Saccharum spp. and commercial sugarcane hybrids. J Sugarcane Res, 1(2), pp.35-42.

♦  Premachandran, M.N., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P and Lekshmi, M., 2011. Sugarcane and polyploidy: a review. J. Sugarcane Res, 1(2), pp.1-15.

♦  Viswanathan, R., Ramesh Sundar, A., Malathi, P., Rahul, P.R., Ganesh Kumar, V., Banumathy, R., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Raveendran, M., Kumar, K.K. and Balasubramanian, P., 2009. Interaction between sugarcane and Colletotrichum falcatum causing red rot: Understanding disease resistance at transcription level. Sugar Tech, 11, pp.44-50.

♦ Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Singode, A., Vengavasi, K. and Velayudhan, V., 2022. Genomic Designing for Abiotic Stress Resistant Sugarcane. In Genomic Designing for Abiotic Stress Resistant Technical Crops (pp. 299-328). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

♦ Viswanathan, R., Geetha, N., Anna Durai, A., Thirugnanasambandam, P.P, Appunu, C., Parameswari, B., Nithya, K., Ramasubramanian, T. and Selvi, A., 2022. Genomic designing for biotic stress resistance in sugarcane. In Genomic designing for biotic stress resistant technical crops (pp. 337-439). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

♦ Thirugnanasambandam, P.P., Singode, A., Thalambedu, L. and Shanmugavel, S. (2022). Opportunity and Challenges for High-throughput Genotyping in Sugarcane. In Genotyping by Sequencing for Crop Improvement (eds H. Sonah, V. Goyal, S.M. Shivaraj and R.K. Deshmukh). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119745686.ch14

♦ Yasin, J.K., Srivignesh, S., Prathima, P.T., Nanjundan, J., Arumugam Pillai, M 2012Merging plant breeding with crop biotechnology NIPA, New Delhi

♣ Honorary Fellow, University of Queensland, Australia, University of Queensland (December 2019- Dec 2022)

♣ NABL Assessor

♣ International Travel Grant DST (2019)

♣ Indo-Australian Career Boosting Gold fellowship for pursuing two years of post-doctoral studies at the University of Queensland, Australia from March 2016 to March 2018 DBT (2016-2018)

♣ CSIR-UGC JRF holder for pursuing PhD (Biotechnology): CSIR(2004-’09)

♣ DBT-Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship holder for pursuing M.Sc (Biotechnology): Jawaharlal Nehru University -DBT(2002-’04)     

♣ Best research paper award for the year 2014-Society of Sugarcane Research and Development (2020)

♣ Best Poster award for the work titled “Changes in transcript expression pattern and enzymatic activities of key genes of sucrose metabolism in sugarcane International symposium on “New paradigms in sugarcane research”(2012)

♣ Best Poster award for the work titled “Identification of microsatellite markers for fibre traits in sugarcane” International symposium on “New paradigms in sugarcane research”(2012)

♣ Best Ph.D student in Biotechnology-Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (2010)

♣ Award for securing highest OGPA in the MSc(Biotechnology)-Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (2004)

♣ Award for securing highest marks in Pomology subjects- Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (2002)

♣ Award for securing highest marks in Vegetable crop production-Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (2002)

♣ Qualified ICAR- NET certificate in Biotechnology -ASRB, New Delhi (2006)

♣ Qualified CSIR-NET certificate in Biotechnology-CSIR (2004)