Dr Naveenkumar Athiyannan
Assistant Professor
Department of Genetic Engineering
Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
Affiliations
Awards and Recognitions
CSIRO Chairman’s Medal for Science and Excellence
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation Higher Degree Research Travel Award
CSIRO Agriculture and Food Director’s Diversity and Inclusion Award
The Crawford Fund Scholar
The University of Queensland (UQ) Centennial Scholarship
Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship
Dr Athiyannan is a plant molecular geneticist and pathologist who obtained his PhD in 2019 from the University of Queensland, Australia. He conducted his doctoral research at the CSIRO Agriculture and Food in Canberra, Australia, from 2015 to 2019. He then joined King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia for his postdoctoral research (2019–2024). In January 2025, Dr Athiyannan established his research group at the Cinvestav Irapuato Unit.
Dr Athiyannan’s research focuses on using genetics and next-generation sequencing to identify rust-resistance genes in wheat and its wild relatives. Using high-throughput genomics, he has successfully cloned four rust-resistance genes (Yr27, Yr28, Sr46b and Lr39) and one morphological trait (RgB1) in wheat and its wild relatives, despite their large and complex genomes. He has also developed diagnostic markers for these genes, enabling them to be tracked precisely in breeding programs. These markers have been deposited in the GrainGenes public repository for use by the wheat community. Dr Athiyannan co-developed the first highly-contiguous wheat genome, Kariega, using PacBio long-read sequencing technology.
His team focuses on utilising advances in genomics and gene cloning methods to identify resistance genes in various plant species. Their goal is to translate these genes into practical applications that mitigate crop loss due to disease and ensure global food security.
Teaching
2025 – present, Biochemistry: Macromolecules – Photosynthesis in the Postgraduate Integrative Biology, Cinvestav Irapuato, Mexico
2025 – present, Plant Biology: Plant response to biotic stress – Disease resistance in the Postgraduate Plant Biotechnology, Cinvestav Irapuato, Mexico
2025 – present, Gene Discovery in Plants: strategies for trait mapping and gene cloning, in the Postgraduate Plant Biotechnology and Integrative Biology Programs, Cinvestav Irapuato, Mexico
2011, MBB 501 – Principles of Biotechnology (Practical) in the Postgraduate Plant Biotechnology at the Department of Plant Biotechnology, CPMB&B, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India
The Athiyannan Lab 