DR. HARINDER SINGH

Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
B.Sc. (Hons.)-Microbiology, M.Sc.-Biotechnology, Ph.D.-Microbiology

Area of Research

Stress biology, Enzyme engineering, Oral Cancer, Fatty acid production

Ph.D. Students:

Asmita Kamble

4^th year Ph. D.

2017 registered

Research Area: Enzyme engineering

Research Summary:

Enzymes are natural catalysts used to speed up chemical reactions. Enzymes with better properties are applied in various industries such as food, animal nutrition, cosmetics, medication, paper and pulp. Enzymes are required with desired properties like high specificity and functional activity, thermostability and activity at wide range of pH. There are two approaches to obtain enzymes with superior properties: bioprospecting natural resources to find novel enzymes or engineer the existing enzymes. Till date natural resources such as hot springs, activated sludge, sea brine pool are explored via bioprospecting or Metagenomic approach. The rational, semi-rational or directed evolution protein engineering approaches along with computational tools are adopted to engineer enzymes. One such enzyme is phytase whose thermostability and activity at wide range of pH is of utmost important in feed and fuel industry. Phytase which is a myoinositol hexakisphosphate phosphohydrolases utilize phytate complex as substrate and catalyzes the hydrolysis of O-P bonds in phytate which results in release of products such as inositol and its intermediate derivatives along with phosphate and other micronutrients. There is a demand of thermostable phytase in feed and fuel industry, since introduction of phytase has potential to reduce environmental pollution, natural resource management, increase bioavailability of micronutrients and increase bioethanol production, reduce feed cost. Few commercial phytases are available but they exhibit reduce activity as temperature increases. We aim to obtain a novel phytase enzyme with improved thermo-stability using in-silico and conventional Bio-prospecting along with enzyme engineering approach.

Publications

Kamble A, Singh H. (2022). Finding novel enzymes by in silico bioprospecting approach. In: Value-Addition in Food Products and Processing Through Enzyme Technology. Ed: M Kuddus and CN Aguilar. Pp 347-364.
Nagar A, Kamble A, Singh H. (2021) Preliminary screening, isolation and identification of microbial phytase producers from soil. Environ Exp Biol 19: 11–22
Kamble A, Singh H. (2020) Different Methods of Soil DNA Extraction. Bio-101, e3521
Kamble A, Sawant S, Singh H. (2020) 16S ribosomal RNA gene-based metagenomics: A review. Biomedical Research Journal 7 (1), 5
Kamble A, Srinivasan S, Singh H. (2019) In-Silico Bioprospecting: Finding Better Enzymes. Molecular Biotechnology. 61(1):53-59.

Shriya Sawant

4^th year Ph. D.

2017 registered

Research Area: Oral Cancer

Research Summary:

The human body harbors approximately ten times more microbial cells as compared to human cells. The fast-growing field of metagenomics has enabled us to understand the deeper relation between these microbes present in our body and the host cells, in maintaining health as well as in causation of a disease, including cancers. India is the hub of oral cancer cases, most of which are attributed to lifestyle risk factors such as tobacco chewing, alcohol consumption, smoking etc. But a significant fraction of oral cancer cases does not show any association with a known risk factor. Our research revolves around deciphering the oral microbiome of Indian oral cancer patients using metagenomics approach and to deduce the correlation of microbial composition of the oral cavity with causation or progression towards oral cancer. We also aim to find the pathways affected in oral cells due to interaction with significant bacterial species which can lead to carcinogenesis.

Publications

Sawant S, Dugad J, Parikh D, Srinivasan S, Singh H. (2021). Identification & correlation of bacterial diversity in oral cancer and long- term tobacco chewers- A case- control pilot study. Journal of Medical Microbiology 70, 001417.
Sawant S, Dugad J, Parikh D, Singh H. (2021) Absolute quantitation of oral bacteria involved in oral cancer by real-time PCR. Medicine in Microecology. Accepted 24^th March, 2021.
Kamble A, Sawant S, Singh H. (2020) 16S ribosomal RNA gene-based metagenomics: A review. Biomedical Research Journal 7 (1), 5

human body harbors approximately ten times more microbial cells as compared to human cells. The fast-growing field of metagenomics has enabled us to understand the deeper relation between these microbes present in our body and the host cells, in maintaining health as well as in causation of a disease, including cancers. India is the hub of oral cancer cases, most of which are attributed to lifestyle risk factors such as tobacco chewing, alcohol consumption, smoking etc. But a significant fraction of oral cancer cases does not show any association with a known risk factor. Our research revolves around deciphering the oral microbiome of Indian oral cancer patients using metagenomics approach and to deduce the correlation of microbial composition of the oral cavity with causation or progression towards oral cancer. We also aim to find the pathways affected in oral cells due to interaction with significant bacterial species which can lead to carcinogenesis.

Evieann Cardoza

3^rd year Ph. D.

2018 registered

Research Area: Bacterial Stress Biology

Research Summary:

My research focuses on stress studies concerning bacteria and my interest lies with using Escherichia coli as the model organism. I am trying to examines various stressors and its impact on RNA chaperones thereby deciphering their role in the bacterium’s stress tolerance.

Publications

Cardoza E, Singh H. (2022). Involvement of CspC in response to diverse environmental stressors in Escherichia coli. Journal of Applied Microbiology 132 (2), 785-801.
Cardoza E, Singh H. (2021). C Group-Mediated Antibiotic Stress Mimics the Cold Shock Response. Current Microbiology 78 (9), 3372-3380.

Neha Rajiv Sawant

1^st year Ph. D.

2020 registered

Research Area: Fatty Acid production

Research Summary:

With increasing population rate, and their demands for non-renewable fossil fuels (like petroleum, natural gas, and coal) to meet the energy requirements, has provoked many researchers to raise a concern to search an alternative energy source. Therefore, there is need for renewable form of fuel. The basic unit of these fuels are fatty acids which can be obtained from few algal, fungal or bacterial sources. Apart from serving as an alternative fuel source, fatty acids have also grabbed great attention in various industries like food-feed industry, cosmetic industry, textile industry, mechanical industry etc. In my research project, one of the possible candidate, E. coliwill be used a role model to produce high levels of fatty acids using various molecular approaches.

Publications

Sawant N, Singh H, Appukuttan D. (2022). Overview of the Cellular Stress Responses Involved in Fatty Acid Overproduction in E. coli. Molecular Biotechnology. 64, 373-387.

Official Email Id

Harinder.Singh@nmims.edu

Official Phone No.

022-4235-5938