Masthead

2020-01-24T11:31:59+00:00

Need for Integration of Ayurveda with Modern Biology and Medicine

2020-01-24T11:31:59+00:00

The mankind's concern for health since the beginning of civilization led each community to develop its own health/medical care system. Ayurveda, the oldest and a well-documented Indian health-care system, is being practiced for several thousand years. It is expected that the system would have had an evidence-based origin. However, in the current perspective and practices, it is largely experience-based system with myths, fallacies and inappropriate commercial practices having made inroads in its integrative health-care practices and philosophies. Historically, the so-called ‘modern medicine’ practices and formulations had their origins in traditional health-care systems, especially the Indian and Chinese. However, the traditional and the modern medicine systems today are competitive and mutually exclusive. The Ayurvedic Biology initiative aims to re-understand Ayurveda in light of the remarkable developments in all disciplines of natural sciences, including biology and understanding of human body and its systems, so that not only the claimed effectiveness of the various formulations and practices is rationally assessed but also the physiological, cellular and molecular bases of their actions get revealed. Recent experimental studies on Ayurveda indeed illustrate the advantages of Ayurvedic Biology approach. More such studies would generate the much needed evidence-based practices, and also provide simple quality-control systems for Ayurvedic formulations. This can be expected to finally lead to emergence of integrative health-care practices, incorporating the best of traditional and modern health-care systems and procedures.

Flood Modelling: Recent Indian Contributions

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Flood modelling is an important first step towards understanding and managing floods, at all spatial scales, from a large catchment of a river to highly developed urban areas and to individual property and infrastructure. Recent advances in modelling techniques along with sophisticated computational tools and data products have facilitated a rapid progress in flood modelling. Despite this progress, an accurate assessment and forecasting of floods with the associated risk is still elusive due to uncertainties at each stage of the modelling. This paper presents a review of flood modelling with specific focus on India. In recent years, significant contributions have been made by Indian researchers to the hydrologic science in general, and to flood modelling in particular. Indian contributions to the areas of hydrologic modelling of floods, flood forecasting, flash flood modelling, urban floods, and risk assessment and mitigation are reviewed in the paper. Since the emphasis is on flood modelling, the related topics of flood frequency analysis are excluded, although some representative studies on extreme rainfall frequencies are briefly mentioned. The paper concludes with some perspectives on future directions in flood modelling and actions needed for sustainable flood management practices, in the country.

Artemisia (Asteraceae) essential oils: compositional variation and mechanisms of its origin, biosynthesis of constituents, correspondence between biological activities and ethnomedicinal usage and repurposement prospects

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Many species of the genus Artemisia, a taxon in the angiosperm family Asteraceae composed of more than 500 species, are widely used in traditional medicine, on account of the safe multi- curative properties of its secondary metabolites biosynthesized in chloroplasts and cytoplasm of cells, largely in trichomes. The steam distilled Artemisia essential oils, into which the volatile organic metabolites get extracted, have been observed to demonstrate enormous intra- and inter- species variation. This review summarises the nature of compositional variation of the volatiles of Artemisia essential oils, biosynthetic processes of the major classes of Artemisia volatiles, and mechanisms responsible for the variation in the content of volatiles in essential oils in Artemisia species. Further, the relationships between ethnomedicinal uses of various Artemisia species and biological activities detected in the essential oils of different Artemisia species are discussed with reference to the quality of essential oils. Artemisia essential oils offer highly significant repurposement prospects.

Voyaging around ClpB/Hsp100 proteins and plant heat tolerance

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Temperature is one of the key physical parameters that fine tunes plant growth and development. However, above the optimal range, it can negatively affect the physiology of plants. Supraoptimal temperature brings incongruity in cellular proteostasis resulting in the build-up of insoluble toxic protein aggregates. To prevent protein misfolding and aggregation, cells deploy different strategies including synthesis of heat shock proteins (Hsp) belonging to different families, like sHsps, Hsp40, Hsp60, Hsp70. Once these aggregates are formed, their dissolution and recovery of the functional proteins occurs by the action of Caseinolytic Protease B (ClpB)/ Hsp100. ClpB/Hsp100 proteins are evolutionarily conserved in bacteria, fungi and plants. This highlights the extreme importance of ClpB function during heat stress (HS) in plants. ClpB system appears indispensable, as mutant bacteria, yeast as well as plants lacking ClpB protein fail to survive HS. Genetic expression of ClpB proteins is modulated both by high temperature as well as developmental cues. Plant contains three isoforms of ClpB/Hsp100, one each localized to cytoplasm (ClpB-C), chloroplast (ClpB-P) and mitochondria (ClpB-M), against one in bacteria and two in yeast. It is particularly the ClpB-C protein that governs the thermotolerance response in plants. This review introduces plant ClpB proteins, summarizes the knowledge gained hitherto in ClpB biology, critically analyzes the recent findings and brings forth the areas requiring thrust in the upcoming research on ClpBs.

An asymmetric hybrid watermarking mechanism using hyperchaotic system and random decomposition in 2D Non-separable linear canonical domain

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

In this paper, an asymmetric hybrid watermarking scheme utilizing four-dimensional (4D) hyperchaotic system with coherent superposition and random decomposition in 2D non-separable linear canonical domain is proposed. The 4D hyperchaotic framework is used for creating permutation keystream for a pixel-swapping mechanism. Its parameters and initial conditions along with the independent parameters of the 2D Non separable linear canonical transform extend the key-space and consequently strengthen the proposed watermarking scheme. The designed watermarking scheme has an extended key-space to avoid any brute-force attack and is non-linear in nature. The scheme is validated on gray-scale images. Computer based simulations have been performed to validate the robustness of the proposed watermarking scheme against different types of attacks. Results demonstrate that the proposed scheme not only offers higher protection against brute force and occlusion attacks but is also invulnerable to special attack.

Carbon-Ion therapy in the Geant4 Binary Light Ion Cascade Model

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

The precision results of Monte Carlo simulations are dependent on the consistency of the physical processes applied, particularly for study of nuclear interactions. Hence, there should be validation of nucleus-nucleus versus experimental data for an accurate evaluation of fragmentation products. In this work the Geant4 Binary Light Ion cascade model has been used. Not many recent and accurate data are available in literature for carbon ion interactions on thin targets in hadrontherapy, especially for nuclear fragments production. The situation is slightly different for neutron yields experiment, for which more accurate data can be found. Hence, a preliminary validation of the nucleus-nucleus Binary Light Ion cascade model has been carried out.

Flexural analysis of functionally graded thin walled beams

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

In this paper, an analytical model has been presented for study of flexural response of functionally graded thin walled beam incorporating first order shear deformation theory and Vlasov’s theory for thin walled beam. The material properties are varied along the depth direction according to the power law distribution of volume fraction of mild steel and alumina. Numerical results for functionally graded thin beams under uniformly distributed vertical loading (for various span to depth ratios) have also been presented.

Investigation on Yttria Stabilized Zirconiacoated Piston Crown using Different Biodiesels

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Present paper is concentrated on the effect of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia coated with its piston crown on the performance and emission characteristics of diesel engine. The piston crown top surface were fully coated with 7% YSZ with thickness of 0.25 mm and in the bond coat NiCrAlY were used with a thickness of 0.05 mm which is deposited on the target surface using plasma spray technique. Present analysis is carried out in a four stroke single cylinder diesel engine with diesel fuel, Mahua and jatropha biodiesel under different loading conditions. Results of this study reveal that the brake thermal efficiency of a 7% YSZ coated engine with diesel as a fuel is increased by 10.4% along with decrease of brake specific fuel consumption of a 7% YSZ by 13.1%. In coated engines the Hydro carbon (HC) emissions and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions was reduced by 13.1% and 16.1% but the Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission was marginally increased by 18.87%.

Profiling bacterial diversity of B2 Cave, a limestone cave of Baratang, Andaman and Nicobar islands, India

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Limestone caves with unique environmental conditions, harbor some highly specialized and novel microorganisms. In the present study, bacterial diversity and taxonomic composition of B2 cave, a limestone cave of Baratang, Andaman and Nicobar Islands were investigated by using high throughput illumina sequencing platform. A total of 1,056 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) comprising of 22 bacterial phyla were detected. Proteobacteria dominated the phyla, followed by Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Nitrospirae. At class level, Gammaproteobacteria was found to be most dominant. Other highly prevalent classes were Alphaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Bacilli. Functional analysis of the microbiome revealed high representation of membrane transport, amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, replication and repair, energy metabolism, xenobiotics biodegradation and metabolism, lipid metabolism, metabolism of cofactors and vitamins and translation. Interestingly, the cave recorded a high number of unclassified OTUs, which might represent novel species and merit further study to determine their functional significance.

Polycystic Kidney Disease: A Paradigm in Major Kidney Disorders

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

The normal architecture of the kidney is crucial for maintaining biological function and its homeostasis. Its proper development depends on highly dynamic processes which modulate the integrity of its associated cellular functions, interactive events and regulatory cascades altogether providing proper turnover in adult life. Any alteration in regulatory processes and normal utility holds crucial consequences for proper functioning of the kidney. These variations accompany renal injury, various etiologic events, deviation from genetic-wild type processes and metabolic disturbances leading to major lesion of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Major renal disorders developing today affecting millions globally include diabetes, hypertension, glomerulonephritis and Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). Among these diseases, PKD is becoming relatively common, and has emerged as one of the largest causes of renal transplantation and dialysis. Therefore, understanding the development, function and progression of normal kidneys to cystic renal kidneys serves an important way in understanding pathophysiology of PKD and cystogenesis.

Rhizospheric Trichoderma isolates as potential biocontrol agent for southern leaf blight pathogen (Bipolaris maydis) in fodder maize

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Two indigenous strains of Trichoderma isolated from rhizospheric soils of maize plants were identified as T. harzianum and assessed for antagonistic activity against Bipolaris maydis causing southern corn leaf blight in fodder maize under controlled and field conditions in two consecutive seasons. Dual culture assay of Trichoderma strains showed significantly higher degree of mycelial inhibition (74.35%) against B. maydis. Similarly under field conditions, both the strains of Trichoderma when applied as seed treatment + foliar spray provided highest reduction in leaf blight severity (54.86 and 48.11%) along with 19.03 percent increase in green fodder yield in comparison to control. The efficacy of Trichoderma strains to boost defense responses against southern corn leaf blight disease in maize was also evaluated in bioagents treated leaves. Plants treated with biocontrol agents showed significantly higher activities of antioxidative defense enzymes like peroxidase (POX), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT). In treated leaves, the activities of POX and SOD reached maximum at 24 h and activity of CAT reached the highest at 36 h after inoculation of pathogen B. maydis. Enzyme activities induced by Trichoderma strains were more obvious than that induced by pathogen only. This implies that biocontrol agent induced defense responses against southern corn leaf blight pathogen in fodder maize.

Guest Editorial: A Decadal Status of Microbiological Research in India

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Description of New Taxa of Prokaryotes: A Decadal Work in India

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

The taxonomic description of novel taxa of prokaryotes from India in the (2006-2016) decade was reviewed. In all 332 new
species descriptions according to “bacteriological code” are there from India since 2006. These descriptions are based on
strains isolated from India and also from outside India. During this period, all the new taxa described belong to the domain
Bacteria with no representation from the domain Archaea. The major habitats studied include soil, marine sediments, water
samples from fresh and marine sources with specimens and insects also being explored. The species belonging to phyla
Proteobacteria was majorly described. Universities are the major centres for research leading to new taxa descriptions and
more and more groups are contributing to description of novel taxa of prokaryotes.

Diversity of Bacteria from Antarctica, Arctic, Himalayan Glaciers and Stratosphere

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

This review explores the bacterial diversity of Antarctica, Arctic, Himalayan glaciers and Stratosphere with a view to
establish their abundance, their identity and capability to adapt to cold temperatures. It also highlights the unique survival
strategies of these psychrophiles at the molecular, cellular, tissue and organism level. It also establishes their utility to
mankind in the spheres of health, agriculture and medicine. A major part of the review includes studies carried by scientists
in India in the above extreme cold habitats.

Agricultural Microbiology Research Progress in India in the New Millennium

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

The research efforts in microbiology over last two decades have focussed on assessing the microbial diversity in various soil
types and cropping systems in all agro-eco-regions, including extreme environments resulting in creation of a vast repository
of microorganisms, free living and endophytes. A marked departure from the past is their identification by both conventional
and molecular methods, resulting in discovery of many novel species. The effects of various soil and agronomic management
practices were assessed on soil microbial diversity and soil health by both classical and metagenomic approach. The
beneficial effects of organic and integrated farming, and adverse effects of chemical intensification have been assessed,
leading to the identification of actinobacteria as important players in maintaining soil health. A major impact has been the
firm attention received from policy makers on the urgent need to conserve soil biodiversity and improve soil health.
Identification of rapid methods of soil biological health assessment, improved rhizobial inoculants, microbial technology
for rapid in situ and ex situ residue and waste breakdown, and mitigating climate change effects are the current priorities.
Future priorities include assessment of the structure and function of the vast reservoir of unculturable microbes;
deleterious microorganisms, assessment of soil-plant-microbe continuum and plant immunity modulation by microbes;
rhizosphere engineering, role of archaea in maintaining soil health, microbial methods to improve soil organic matter
formation; assessment and quantification of ecosystem services rendered by agriculturally important microorganisms; and
improved microbial technology for biofertilizers and delivery systems. The tremendous advances in agricultural microbiology
in last two decades in India are a cause for optimism that solutions will be forged for the above challenges using both
classical and modern approaches, thereby ushering in the process more sustainable agricultural systems.

Industrial Microbiology: Current Status of Research & Development in India

2020-01-24T11:32:00+00:00

Bio-Industrial Sector in India is still in its infancy, but growing steadily at CAGR of 11.2% accounting for total sales of USD 128 Millions. The multinational companies account for nearly 65% of the market, while the rest is met by the local industries. The Indian bio-industries are now reassessing and increasing their R&D capabilities and technical staff, establishing production units and developing an elaborate distribution system. The major industries employing microbial fermentation in India include alcoholic beverages and industrial ethanol, organic acids, enzymes and recombinant therapeutics. The upcoming lignocellulosics based biorefineries offers an exciting area of R&D and scale up at industrial level. However, there is urgent need to establish industries for fermentation of novel bio-molecules e. g. amino acids, novel antibiotics, etc. to be self reliant in face of vibrant geopolitical situation.

Microbe-Assisted Biodegradation, Bioremediation and Metabolic Engineering

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

We summarize here the recent research and development in the area of microbe assisted biodegradation and remediation
processes by different research lab in the country. The various substituted hydrocarbons as pollutants have been studied
by different groups. The depth of the study includes the characterization of key bacterial metabolic pathway for target
pollutants through both genome and proteome levels. By understanding the pathway, in few cases the metabolic engineering
approached have been demonstrated for the efficient utilization of pollutants. The better understanding to key enzyme
were explored using protein modeling or by understanding its expression through heterologous host. The review also
presents few case studies where pilot scale demonstration of contaminated sites with selected pollutants, have also been
carried out effectively.

Advances in Environmental Biotechnology in India: Status Report

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

Sustenance of human beings depends upon the availability of water, food and good environmental conditions. However, the
evolutionary changes in our lives have been affected by the industrial developments, which have influenced our everincreasing
demands for more food and energy. To meet our daily needs, we depend heavily upon fossil fuels, which results
in environmental pollution. It has obliged us to look for novel energy resources. In addition, to meet the food demand,
agricultural practices especially the use of pesticides, antimicrobials, and fertilizers have also added to soil contamination.
In this article, we have provided the status of biotechnological advancements being made in India on the following issues:
i) Bioremediation, ii) Microbial processes and products, iii) Environment and nanotechnology, and iv) Microbial diversity.

Microbial Genomics and Metagenomics in India: Explorations and Perspectives

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

The discipline of genomics and metagenomics has been rapidly growing as an emerging field of research since the last decade.
This development is largely due to the rapid advances in sequencing technologies that generate enormous amount of high
throughput data at low costs. While there is huge information on genomics and metagenomics from different parts of the
world, there have been few studies from India due to the underlying limitation of data analyses. In this review, major
genomic and metagenomic studies to predict the bacterial diversity and their ecological significance, and the functional roles
played by microbes in different environments in India have been summarized. The integration of culture dependent and
culture-independent approaches has expanded our knowledge on the composition and function of microbial communities
in specific niches. However, there still exist challenges and gaps in our understanding about the microbial resource in Indian
subcontinent as their importance is over-looked by the scientific community despite quite a few reports on metagenomics/
genomics from India.

Medical Microbiology in India: The Recent Developments in the Basic Research, Diagnostics and Vaccines

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

Medical microbiology being the largest subset under microbiology brings out the benefits of the research in the field of
microbiology for the welfare of the masses through applied medical science. Researchers around the globe are working
tirelessly in this field in order to prevent, diagnose and treat infectious diseases well in time. India being a tropical country
with poor socio-economic conditions and slack healthcare schemes has wide range and burden of the infectious diseases.
This has led to the researchers here to take up the challenging tasks of medical microbiology research, they are actively
working and the present article reviews the exemplary contribution of these researchers from India in the last decade. This
enlists the basic research carried to assess the infections caused by Rotavirus, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV),
Pathogenic Vibrios, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M. leprae, Salmonella enterica servovar typhi, Helicobacter pylori, Yersinia
enterocolitica, Leptospires, Leishmania, Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, Wuchereria bancrofti, Entamoeba histolytica
and some other pathogens. The knowledge gathered through the basic research has been applied for the development of
certain vaccines and diagnostic tools and/or techniques to tackle infectious diseases. Notably, Mycobacterium Indicus Prani
vaccine (against certain Mycobacterial infections), Rotavac (against rotavirus), JENVAC (against Japanese encephalitis),
recombinant vaccine DENVs (against dengue virus) etc. have been developed by Indian research groups and have found
wide application. The present article briefly reviews such breakthrough developments in the field of applied microbiology
along with a concise account of the infectious diseases outbreaks that resulted from inadequate containments of the vectors.

Mycology Research in India in the Last Ten Years (2008-2018)

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

With the rise in the incidence of fungal infections in India due to the unique environmental and socioeconomic reasons, the
research activities on fungal infections and fungi causing human infections have increased manifold. The major areas of
clinical research on fungal infections include (i) epidemiology fungal infections, (ii) antifungal resistance detection, surveillance
and its mechanism, (iii) molecular diagnosis and pathogenesis, (iv) outbreak investigations, (v) development of management
guidelines, and (vi) clinical trials. The basic scientists’ research areas include (i) understanding different molecular mechanisms
on the evolution of fungi, (ii) computational models that is operating at different cellular levels of pathogenic fungi, (iii)
understanding molecular details on the biosynthesis, signalling pathways involved in fungal virulence, (iv) identifying
potential new antifungal drug targets, (v) basis of antifungal resistance mechanisms. The major centres in India carrying out
advanced research in this field are Department of Medical Microbiology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, which also houses the
National Reference Centre and WHO Collaborating Centre; Department of Pulmonary Medicine (PGIMER, Chandigarh),
which focusses clinical research on respiratory mycoses; VP Chest Institute (New Delhi), JNCASR (Bengaluru), School of
Life Science (JNU, New Delhi), CCMB (Hyderabad), and AIIMS (New Delhi). The two national organizations, Fungal
Infection Study Forum (FISF) and Society for Indian Human and Animal Mycology (SIHAM) have conducted multicentric
epidemiological studies. The fungal diseases that have been studied in India in the last decade include invasive candidiasis
(due to Candida tropicalis, Candida glabrata, Candida albicans, Candida auris), mucormycosis (caused by Rhizopus
arrhizus, Apophysomyces variabilis), invasive asperillosis (A. flavus and A. fumigatus), allergic bronchopulmonary
aspergillosis (A. flavus and A. fumigatus), fungal rhinosinusitis (A. flavus), cryptococcosis (C. neoformans and C. gattii),
histoplasmosis, sprorotrichosis, sebrohhoeic dermatitis/dandruff (Malassezia sp.), dermatophytosis (T. mentagrophytes,
T. rubrum), mycetoma, fungal keratitis/endophthalmitis, phaeohyphomycosis (Cladophialophora bantiana).

Human Gut Microbiome Research in India: A Retrospect and Future Opportunities

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

In recent years, human gut microbiome research has moved from being an area of basic research to the advance therapeutics.
After the realization of the potential role of the microbiome research in human health, several government agencies and
major pharmaceutical companies across the globe have initiated many mega projects. Human microbiome research in India
is still in its infancy and a lot needs to be done to understand and investigate the role of microbiota in shaping the overall
health and disease conditions especially in the Indian scenario. Indian population harbours tremendous genetic and cultural
diversity consistingof more than 6,000 communities and approximately 40,000 endogamous groups.Indian population
isstructured and thus endogamous group and geographical origin need to be essentially considered while making any
molecular inferences. These variations make Indian population a perfect model to study the ‘Genotype-Microbiome’
association. This articleretrospectively reviewsthe progress in Indian gut microbiome research, ranging from the population
based microbial profiling to the bacterial isolations and their genomic characterization and attempts to put forth the future
prospects in this area.

Academy News

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00

Cumulative Index

2020-01-24T11:32:01+00:00