Areas of Research

• Biochemistry and Enzyme Biotechnology

  Prof. P.R. Deepa:

  • Applied Biochemistry
  • Better understanding of disease mechanisms and pharmacologic strategies in the areas of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disorders and cancer. 
  • Applied nutrition Biochemistry
  • Biochemical / bioprocess engineering
  • Green chemistry 

  Prof. Pankaj Sharma:
  

  • Phytochemical characterization of desert plants with respect to the presence of medicinally important compounds
  • Purification and biochemical characterization of enzymes participating in metabolism of flavonoids and other secondary metabolites in legumes

• Bio-Informatics and Computational Biology

  Prof. Shibasish Chowdhury:

  • Understanding structure-function relationship of Protein and DNA
  • Understanding protein evolution process

  
  

• Cancer Biology and Chronic Diseases

  Prof. Uma S Dubey:

  • Evaluating anti-cancer properties of camel milk and studying its mechanism of action
  • Experimental approaches to validate mathematical models on cancer and immune cell interaction kinetics in presence or absence of potent anti-cancer drugs  and immunopotentiating agents

  Prof. Rajdeep Chowdhury:
  

  • Characterizing molecular mechansims involved in cancer chemo-resistance
  • Role of autophagy and associated signaling in cancer chemo-resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma
  • Role of non-coding RNAs in cancer chemo-resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma

  
  Prof. Sudeshna Mukherjee:
  

  • Role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in cancer progression, especially in epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT)

  Dr. Meghana Tare:

  • Neurodegenerative diseases in Drosophila models.
  • Cellular and Molecular Genetics of Human Diseases

  Dr. Syamantak Majumder:

  • Identification of the key epigenetic changes that occur during development and progression of diseases specially looking at vascular complications associated with endothelial dysfunction.
  • To identify and target those epigenetic processes that are involved in endothelial dysfunctions in several diseases like diabetes induced cardiovascular and kidney diseases as well as pathological angiogenesis during tumor growth. 

• Environmental and Microbial Biotechnology

  Prof. S.K. Verma:

  • Development of recombinant DNA based biosensor device for detection of arsenic in water samples
  • Characterization and pharmacological evaluation of bioactive compounds
  • Development of bioleaching technology for recovery of metal from ores and biosorption technology for removal of radio nuclide from nuclear industry waste
  • Biodegradation of organic pollutants
  • Bio-Diesel production from microalgae

  
  Prof. Jitendra Panwar:
  

  • Development of novel biomimetic approach towards synthesis of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles and their characterization
  • Mechanistic studies behind biosynthesis of nanoparticle emphasizing protein-nanoparticle interactions

  Prof. Prabhat N. Jha:
  

  • Screening and optimization of plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria for their potential as biofertilizer candidate
  • To investigate molecular mechanism for endophytic colonization in crop plants such as wheat and pearl millet
  • Study of immune response of host plants to beneficial bacteria
  • Isolation and characterization of plant associated bacteria which can ameliorate abiotic stress in host plants through induced systemic tolerance
  • Study of expression and regulation of ACC deaminase in associative bacteria
  • Endophytic bacteria assisted phytoremediation of organic contaminants
  • Developing new enzyme assays

  Dr. Sandhya Marathe:

  • Modeling immune response to Salmonella during typhoid
  • Understanding the circumstances under which Salmonella infected individual succumbs to an active disease, evolves as a persister or clears the infection. 
  • To  develop a continuous-time mechanistic model, consisting of a system of nonlinear, first-order ordinary differential equations based on a complex immuno-regulatory network functional in mesenteric lymph node during infection. 
  • To understand the molecular mechanisms of Salmonella pathogenesis and identify different virulence factors essential for the same.
  • Identification of therapeutic drug targets for treatment of Salmonellosis/typhoid.

  
  

• Parasitology and Vector Biology

  Prof. A.K. Das:
  

  • Understanding complicated malaria (Plasmodium falciparum & Plasmodium vivax), using patient derived samples
  • Possible bio markers, for severe malaria
  • Creating and using Systems networks for identifying important molecules
  • Investigation of identified molecules
  • New diagnostic approaches and concepts, focused on, but not restricted to malaria
  • Understanding molecules involved in immune perturbation in malaria and comparison with immune perturbation in other human diseases
  • Using novel plasmid sequences from isolated Lactobacilli, for different purposes

  
  

  Prof. Vishal Saxena:

  • Characterization of vaccine candidate antigens of the malarial parasites of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax
  • Characterization of apicoplast targeted nuclear encoded proteins in Plasmodium vivax Indian isolates
  • Characterization of the apicoplast genome from Plasmodium vivax
  • Characterization of nuclear encoded protein particiapting in the apicoplast division
  • Characterization of Isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway genes in apicoplast of Plasmodium vivax
  • Modeling of hypothetical proteins using bioinformatic tools to identify novel drug targets in malaria parasite

  
  Prof. Shilpi Garg:
  

  • Studies on drug resistance marker genes in Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax
  • Analysis of metabolic pathway genes in Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax
  • Characterization of Fe-S cluster pathway in apicoplast of Plasmodium vivax
  • Analysis of hypothetical/ putative proteins dual targeted to apicoplast and mitochondria in Plasmodium vivax

• Plant Biotechnology

  Prof. Rita Sharma:

  • Harnessing plant biotechnology coupled with big data analytics for crop improvement
  • Feedstock improvement for biofuels
  • Comparative genomics and molecular evolution
  • Development of new resources, tools and technologies for plant research. 
  • Identification of key microRNA-target modules and genes involved in the determination of grain weight and micronutrient content in Sorghum bicolor using small RNA and transcriptome profiling. 
  • Identification of key microRNA-target modules and genes involved in the determination of grain weight and micronutrient content in Sorghum bicolor using small RNA and transcriptome profiling

  Prof. B Vani:
  

  • Nitrate assimilatory mechanism in Spirulina platensis

  Dr. Mukul Joshi:

  • Exploration of heat-shock proteins (HSPs) and factors (HSFs) in a thermotolerant plant Prosopis cineraria by genome-wide   transcriptome study
  • Developing heat/abiotic stress tolerant transgenic rice using HSP/HSF genes from Prosopis cineraria
    
  • Application of genome editing (CRISPR-Cas9) for enhanced heat stress tolerance in rice