Dr. Balkrishna A. Shinde completed his Bachelor's (2006), Master's (2008) and Ph. D. (2018) degree in Botany from Department of Botany, Savitribai Phule Pune University and CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India. His doctoral work comprises regulation of plant-induced defense by WRKY transcription factor to improve resistance in tomato against fungal pathogen, Alternaria solani. He was visiting Ph. D. scholar at Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel to work on the functional characterization genes involved in Steroidal Glycol-Alkaloid biosynthesis in tomato. He was UGC-Dr. D. S. Kothari postdoctoral Fellow (Higher Fellowship) at Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India. His postdoctoral work included molecular mechanism of defense response during pigeonpea-Fusarium interaction. He also worked as Senior Project Associate, Division of Biochemical Sciences, CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune to work on molecular diversity, colchicine content and seed germination aspects of Gloriosa superba. The main emphasis of his research work includes plant–pathogen/pest interactions, plant specialized metabolites and plant metabolic pathway engineering.