**Meet the editor**

Ibrokhim Y. Abdurakhmonov received his B.S. Degree (1997) in Biotechnology from the National University of Uzbekistan, his M.S. degree in Plant Breeding (2001) from Texas A&M University, USA, his PhD degree (2002) in Molecular Genetics, a Doctor of Science degree (2009) in Genetics, and full professorship (2011) in Molecular Genetics and Molecular Biotechnology from the Institute

of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. He founded (2012) and is currently leading the Center of Genomics and Bioinformatics of Uzbekistan. He serves as an associate editor/editorial board member of several international and national journals on plant sciences. He received several awards including the 2010 Chest Badge "Sign of Uzbekistan" government award, 2010 TWAS prize, and the ICAC Cotton Researcher of the Year 2013- for his outstanding contribution to cotton genomics and biotechnology. He was elected as The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Fellow (2014) in Agricultural Science and as a co-chair/chair of the "Comparative genomics and Bioinformatics" workgroup (2015) for the International Cotton Genome Initiative (ICGI). In 2017, he was elected as a Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan.
