Dr Dilip R. Panthee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Horticultural Science at North Carolina State University, USA. His key research focuses on the development of new tomato lines and cultivars, utilising both conventional and molecular approaches. Dr Panthee's expertise is in plant breeding, genetics, genomics, QTL mapping, molecular marker development and marker-assisted selection. His tomato breeding program at North Carolina State University employs both conventional and molecular breeding approaches to improve tomato disease resistance, yield, and fruit quality. Dr Panthee has released 13 hybrid tomato cultivars and 19 tomato breeding lines. He has also published over 95 journal articles, 10 book chapters and more than 85 abstracts and research reports.