Activity

Research

As more species’ genomes are sequenced, computational analysis of these data has become increasingly important. Our research work mainly focuses on comprehensive and critical analysis of DNA, RNA and protein data as well as genomes through different bioinformatics tools and techniques. We have already initiated multidisciplinary research activities with emphasis on basic research in frontier areas of modern biology and high quality research on cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases. A synopsis of our major research activities are given below.

1. Cholera, the most severe and deadly diarrheal disease, is causing pandemics since 1817. Vibrio cholerae strains, associated with pandemics, show an unusual genomic transformation to attain greater fitness. Thus, we are carrying out comparative genome analysis of different Vibrio cholerae strains to understand the evolutionary events, which influence the emergence of their pathogenic traits. This can be a new approach to fight against the infectious diseases like cholera.
    
2. Antimicrobial peptides, important members of the innate host defense system in eukaryotes, have a broad ability to kill microbes. Beside their role as endogenous antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides are also recorded to have roles in inflammation, wound repair, angiogenesis and regulation of the adaptive immune system. Thus, our objective is to detect the evidence of positive selection of these important molecules to undergo evolution in response to challenges by fast evolving microbes.
    
3. Leptospirosis has emerged to become a major public health problem in developing countries including India. This is the world’s most common zoonotic disease that has become an important cause of morbidity and mortality among impoverished populations. In the Andaman Islands of India during the early 20th century, it occurred in the penal settlements of the British India Administration as an acute febrile illness with hepato-renal complications. Information regarding the disease is unavailable from 1930 till late 1980s when Andaman haemorrhagic fever (AHF), a mysterious illness with the majority of cases presenting with pulmonary involvement, appeared. AHF was later identified as leptospirosis and severe pulmonary haemorrhage was shown for the first time as a complication of leptospirosis in India. Leptospirosis continues to occur in the islands annually. However, the recent availability of complete genome sequences for Leptospira spp. has lead to important insights into the biology of these organisms and their pathogenesis.
   We are working jointly with the Regional Medical Research Centre (ICMR), Andaman & Nicobar Islands, a WHO Collaborating Centre for diagnosis, reference, research and training in leptospirosis, to study the genetic difference, if any between the strains of pathogenic, non pathogenic and intermediate phenotypic characters and to understand the genetic changes as a repertoire of gene acquisition and loss on an evolutionary time scale.
    
4. Swine flu, as colloquially referred to, is a pandemic caused by a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus in the year 2009. The virus, as proposed by the reassortment theory, is found to contain a combination of genes from swine, avian (bird) and human influenza viruses. Various strains of influenza viruses have caused pandemics since 1918. We have investigated the evolutionary complexities of H1N1 influenza virus to explore the possible etiology of the 2009 flu pandemic, keeping track with the earlier recorded pandemics. We are also trying to analyze how the evolutionary constraints have been detrimental in pronouncing the fitness of the organism and thus the severity of the disease. We are aiming to shed light on the evolutionary mysteries of H1N1 supported by a structural preview and thus a direct relation to its functioning in the human host.
    
5. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder characterized by lesions in numerous regions of the brain. Our main focus has been an etiopathogenic study of Parkinson’s disease from the aspect of disease mutations and structural destabilization. This will help us to identify potential role of a PD-associated gene dysfunction in pronouncing the severity of the disease.
    
6. Cholera Portal: A comprehensive proposal for online cholera resource
   A century of research has been conducted on cholera and its causative organism Vibrio cholerae, yet it remains a global health problem. The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive web-based cholera portal that will serve as a hub for cholera researchers around the world. The objective is to harness the maximum amount of information about cholera in one place from microbiological, medical, epidemiological, ecological, and climatic data. This will help researchers and medical professionals working towards easing the impact of cholera, especially during outbreak periods. The portal will be open-source and easily accessible to the public through user-friendly search tools. Bringing together the collective intellect of researchers in the field will have an immense impact in advancing research in the field and in accelerating our understanding of cholera, which continues to pose a formidable challenge.
    
7. ASRD (Archael Stress Response Database): The word stress has become a very frequently encountered word in our day to day life. Even for microscopic organisms like Archaea, there is not much change in scenario. We are developing a comprehensive database on Archaeal stress response genes. Such a database will hold immense potential for further downstream works in the relevant fields where in-depth studies of Archaeal stress responsive proteins/genes would be required. This database is likely to provide an instant insight, which would make the researchers’ job faster and easier.

Training / Services

Training:

The center offers research projects to students pursuing their post-graduation and graduation in science and engineering to meet the partial fulfillment of their respective degrees/diplomas.

We also provide short-term training to fresh post-graduates and graduates in science and engineering.

Workshop:

The center has already conducted several workshops in different areas of basic and advance bioinformatics.

In the current academic year, we are also planning to arrange workshops at regular intervals on various important domains like Biological Knowledge Discovery, Biological Sequence Analysis, Structural Biology, Biostatistics etc.

**Please visit regularly the Notification Page for new announcements.