Dr. Bijaya Pant: Professor. Dr. Pant obtained her M.Sc. degree in Botany from Tribhuvan University in 1991, and Ph.D. degree in Biotechnology from Hiroshima University, Japan in 1997. Her major fields of interest are plant tissue culture, development of micro-propagation technologies, synthetic seed and metabolite production in culture for their commercial utilization. Prof. Pant is engaged in different aspects of medicinal orchid research, their germplasm conservation, mass propagation, transfer them from lab to land, and investigating anticancer properties of various medicinal orchids. Prof. Pant has research experience in various projects funded by national and international organizations and has completed seven research projects as a principal investigator. She has supervised 63 M.Sc. dissertations and 4 Ph.D. students. She is currently supervising 4 master and 3 Ph.D. students. She has published more than 100 papers in national and international journals/publications and authored three books. Email: b.pant@cdbtu.edu.np