I have worked on potato breeding, genetics. genetic resources and biotechnology for the last 35 years as a research scientist and also worked as Head, Division of Crop Improvement, Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla for 5 years. Presently I am leading the R&D activities of Onion and Garlic as Director, Directorate of Onion & Garlic Research, Rajgurnagar, Pune, India. I have traveled to more than 20 countries in official capacity including as CGIAR expert on potato breeding to review the work of the International Potato Center, Lima, Peru. I also worked as Visiting Professor at Hokkaido University, Japan for 1 year under JSPS invitation fellowship. I have published more than 250 papers in national and international journals of repute and am also the editor of the book: Handbook of Potato Production, Improvement and Postharvest Management, from Haworth Press, New York, London, Oxford. I have bred several varieties, developed selection procedures, established genebank and conducted research on a number of aspects related to my field of plant breeding, genetics and tissue culture.
Some of my importatn publications are as below;

Gopal, J., P.C. Gaur and M.S. Rana, 1992. Early generation selection for agronomic characters in a potato breeding programme. Theor. Appl. Genet. 84: 709-713.

Gopal, J. 1997. Progeny selection for agronomically important characters in early generations of potato breeding programmes. Theor. Appl. Genet. 95: 307-311.

Gopal, J., J.L. Minocha and H.S. Dhaliwal, 1998. Microtuberization in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Plant Cell Reports 17: 794-798.

Gopal, J. 1999. In vitro versus in vivo genetic divergence in potato. Theor. Appl. Genet. 98: 299-304.

Gopal, J. and K. Oyama. 2005. Genetic base of Indian potato selections as revealed by pedigree analysis. Euphytica 142: 23-31.

Gopal, J. and K. Iwama. 2007. In vitro screening against water-stress mediated through sorbitol and polyethylene glycol. Plant Cell Reports 26: 693-700.

Gopal, J., V. Kumar and S.K. Luthra. 2008. Top-cross vs. poly-cross as alternative to test-cross for estimating the general combining ability in potato. Plant Breeding 127: 441-445.

Gopal, J. and Nain S. Chauhan 2010. Slow-growth in vitro conservation of potato germplasm at low temperature. Potato Research 53: 141-145.

Patil V.U., J. Gopal and B.P. Singh. 2012. Improvement for bacterial wilt resistance in potato by conventional and biotechnological approaches. Agricultural Research 1: 299-316.