Senior Scientist, Environmental Biotechnology & Genomics Division, CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute
My research interest area is the profiling of antibiotic resistance in different niches through culturable and metagenomic approach, identification of multiple drug resistance pattern, underlying mechanism of resistance development, spread and physiological effect onresistome. My research group is actively involved in designing of microbial consortium for application in wastewater/plant growth enhancement along with mitigation and biodegradation of hazardous compounds. Furthermore my research work is also inclined towards the exploration of gut microbial community for functional genes and novel enzymes which further can be applied for the bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass to valuable products.
My role in ResPharm:
I along with my research group will be involved in conducting microbiological assay, physico-chemical analysis and metagenomic DNA sequencing of the environmental samples collected from Baddi and Kangra area. We are using various bioinformatic tools to identify and classify the types microbial communities residing, their functional roles, and most importantly profiling antibiotic resistance pattern. With the help of deep metagenomic sequencing, the goal is to annotate the genes which confer resistance to the microbes against a specific antibiotic, estimate the gene copy number of targeted ARGs, identifying the mobile genetic elements, and predicting the underlying mechanism for resistance.
