Shaon Ray Chaudhuri - Department of Biotechnology

Lecturer

Dr. Shaon Ray Chaudhuri

shaon.raychaudhuri@wbut.ac.in

Dr. Shaon Ray Chaudhuri has been worked on DNA double strand repair mechanism, following Ionizing Radiation Damage, in an Archaea (Ind J Phys 73:795-804, 1999; Anaerobe 6: 325-331, 2000; Anaerobe 9:15-2, 2003). She received her Ph. D. degree from Calcutta University in 2001. Later her contour of research covered both prokaryotes and lower eukaryotes (Folia Microbiol. 44: 37-40, 1999). She joined Jadavpur University as a DBT Postdoctoral Fellow (2001-2003) and opened a new chapter in her research career on microbial biodiversity screening of wetlands in and around Calcutta. She continued at Jadavpur University as DST Fast Track Scientist (2003-2004) and became involved in microbial genetic resource management of East Calcutta Wetlands using the culture independent approach.

Project Briefing

Environmental Biology

Microbial biodiversity screening and microbial genetic resource management of East Calcutta Wetland (ECW) using the culture independent approach.

East Calcutta Wetland, one of the Ramsar sites is an example of a multiple use wetland system involved in resource recovery activities. The aim was to explore the existing microbial diversity and to understand their role in undergoing remediation mechanism. Culture independent approach was the main frame for the diversity screening. Analysis of microbial population involves community DNA isolation, amplification, cloning 16S rRNA sequencing and finally secondary structure based phylogenetic analysis using ARB software.

320 novel cones obtained during the study indicated the presence of microorganisms from 12 different main bacterial phyla, thus revealing the rich natural microbial resource at ECW.

Project student

Arup Pattanayak (M. Tech Biotech 2005)

Publication

Ray Chaudhuri, S, A K Pattanayak and A R Thakur. Microbial DNA extraction of samples of varied origin. Current Science 91(12), 1697-1700 (2006).
Ray Chaudhuri, S and A R Thakur. Microbial genetic resource mapping of East Calcutta Wetland. Current Science 91(2), 212-217 (2006).

Exploring the edibility of fish and vegetables cultivated in the East Calcutta Wetland

ECW covering an area of about 12, 500 hectares receives roughly 600 million litres of waste water and more than 2,500 tones of garbage. The resource recovery activities at East Calcutta Wetland are mainly based upon the usage of the waste to generate products like vegetables paddy and fish. The aim is to have a scientific analysis of the quality of these products from the point of human consumption. The work involves to check t e extent of metal accumulation in the parts by using techniques like Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence.

Project student

Ms. Sayali Salodkar (M.Tech Biotechnology, 2006)

Publication

Ray Chaudhuri, S., M. Mishra, P. Nandy and A. R. Thakur, 2008. Waste management: A case study of ongoing traditional practices at East Calcutta Wetland. American Journal of Agricultural and Biological sciences, 3: 315-320.
Ray Chaudhuri, S., S. Salodkar, M. Sudarshan and A. R. Thakur, 2007. Integrated Resource Recovery at East Calcutta Wetland – how safe is these? American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Scienes, 2: 75-80.
Raychaudhuri, S., M Mishra, S Salodkar, M Sudarshan and A R Thakur, 2008.Traditional Aquaculture Practice at East Calcutta Wetland: The Safety Assessment American Journal of Environmental Sciences, 4 (2): 140-144.
Ray Chaudhuri, S., S. Salodkar, M. Sudarshan, I. Mukherjee and A. R. Thakur. Role of Water hyacinth mediated Phytoremediation in Waste Water Purification at East Calcutta Wetland. Environmental Sciences, 2008, 5(1): 53-62.
Phytoplankton diversity as indicator of water quality for fish cultivation. American Journal of Environmental Sciences, 2008, 4(4):271-276.

Exploring and exploiting the microbial resource of East Calcutta Wetland

The microbial profile obtained through phylogenetic analysis has been used for prediction of growth condition of useful novel microbes and 20 pure isolates were obtained Of these, 9 are involved in extracellular protease production, while 9 others are involved in oil degradation as they grew in minimal media only with oil as the sole carbon source. Some of the later produce extracellular lipase. Since microbial enzymes are known to have application in detergent industries, protease and lipase from two isolates were being tried as additive to different detergent. Similarly another strain produces protease that can cause dehairing of hide at neutral pH. All of these strains are found to grow in presence of metal salts. The Energy Dispersive X Ray Fluorescence data and TEM photographs show accumulation of metals inside these bacteria. Accumulation is either all throughout the cell or as nanoparticles. The nanoparticles in turn are either in the periphery of the cell or in the cytoplasm as evident from electron dense accumulation of unstained cell under TEM.

Ph.D students

Ms. Sanhita Chowdhury
Ms. Madhusmita Mishra

Project students

Mr. Adarsh VK (M.Tech Biotech, 2006)
Mr. Ramesh Malathu (M.Tech Biotech, 2006)
Mr. Prabhat Maharana (M.Sc project)
Ms. Anindita Mukherjee (M.Sc project)
Ms. Parika Bandopadhyaya ((M.Sc, Summer Trainee)
Mr. Sandip Bose (M.Sc Biotechnology, Summer Trainee)
Mr. Ankush KareMore (M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)
Mr. Jayshankar Singh Yadav (M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)
Mr. Nijendra Pratap Singh (M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)
Mr. Sachin Kumar Singh (M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)

Publicatons

Chowdhury, S., M Mishra, Adarsh VK, A Mukherjee, A R Thakur and S Ray Chaudhuri. Novel metal accumulator and protease secretor microbes from East Calcutta Wetland. American Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Accepted
Adarsh VK, M Mishra, S. Chowdhury, M Sudarshan, A R Thakur and S Ray Chaudhuri. Studies on metal microbe interaction of three bacterial isolates from East Calcutta Wetland. Online Journal of Biological Sciences. Accepted.
Malathu Ramesh, S. Chowdhury, M Mishra, S Das, P Moharana, J Mitra, U Mukhopadhyay, A R Thakur and S Ray Chaudhuri. Characterization and wash performance analysis of microbial extracellular enzymes from East Calcutta Wetland. Accepted.

Screening of potent microbes from different sites of India; Protease secreting microbes from marine origin ; Magnetotactic bacteria from mineral ore rich sites

The objective of the work is to screen out useful microbes from varied environmental origin through a culture dependent approach. The work involves the complete characterization of the microbes and a
look into their application in bioremediation

PhD Student

Ms. Sumana Das

Project Students

Ms. Alka Agarwal (M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)
Mr. Kaushal Prasad Mishra M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)
Mr Prahlad Mahara M.Tech Biotech, 2008, ongoing)
Mr. Aditya Sarkar (Int. PhD Microbiology, 2008, ongoing)
Mr Sorav Pakharashi (Int. PhD Microbiology, 2008, ongoing)
Mr. Aritra Deb (Int. PhD Microbiology, 2008, ongoing)
Ms. Ananya Pal (Int. PhD Microbiology, 2008, ongoing)
Ms. Susmita Roy (Int. PhD Microbiology, 2008, ongoing)
Ms. Sayanti Sahoo (Int. PhD Molecular Biology, 2008, ongoing)

Studies on Heavy ion irradiated metal induced radiation sensitization in Bacillus subtilis.

Ionizing radiations are energetic particles or waves that have the potential to ionize an atom or molecule through atomic interactions. The biological effect of radiation is thought in terms of their effect on living cell. The effect of radiation on the living cells is primarily its effect on DNA damage. The correlation between metals and irradiation can be put forth as that metal ions act as centers or solid base where the radiation strikes and cause release of secondary electrons which further amplify the cellular damage Since the cell devote a lot of energy to combat the stress of damage, the normal metabolic pathway can be hampered. In addition the radiations can induce a negative effect on the metal cofactors associated with the enzymes thereby sowing down the enzymatic activity. The work revolves around to look the effect of metal on the irradiation induced damage and further to find the effect on the metabolism of the microbe.

Student

Ms. Sumana Das (JRF, IUAC, UGC)

Studies on nanocrystal formation in microbe undergoing heavy ion irradiation.

Several isolates from ECW are found to accumulate metal and generate nanoparticles. The number and size of the particle vary within isolates. As reported, microbes develop several defence mechanisms against metal induced stress. The present study is regarding the effect of irradiation on the nanoparticle formation. Heavy ion irradiation can accelerate the defecnce mechanism or otherwise inhibit the normal phenomenon.

Student

Ms. Poulomi Nandy; (JRF, IUAC, UGC)

Anaerobic Microbiology

Sulfate Reducing Bacteria

Sulfate is a product mainly industrial activities like metal smelting, fuel gas scrubbing and mining activities. Being a health hazard the removal of sulfate from ground and surface water is a primary concern. Microbe mediated remediation is an alternative to chemical methods. The metabolic cycle of sulfate reducing bacteria enables them to oxidize simple organic molecules using the sulfate ion as an electron acceptor. This process produces hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and the bicarbonate ion (HCO3-). Hydrogen sulfide readily reacts with heavy metal ions to immobilize the metals as insoluble metal sulfides. In a mega city like calcutta with a population in million, the high rate of vehicular emmission is one of the major causes of sulfate concentration in waste water. Along with this the effluent from the local industries like tanneries add to the surface load. East Calcutta Wetland which is the natural dumping ground for the city is already reported to a microbial reserve and thus act as the source for efficient sulafte reducing bacteria. The future plan llies with the development of a bioremedial package either with apure isolate or a mixed consortium which would be efficient in reduction of sulafte within a less time scale.

PhD Student

Ms. Madhusmita Mishra (SRF, DAE-BRNS)
Ms. Poonam Nasipuri (JRF, CSIR)

Project Students

Mr. Arunava Pradhan (Int. PhD Molecular Biology, (Int. PhD Molecular Biology)
Ms. Sumita Chakrobarty(Int. PhD Molecular Biology, (Int. PhD Molecular Biology
Ms. Pranami Bhaumik (Int. PhD Molecular Biology, 2007)

Publication

24 Gen Bank submissions

Ionizing radiation induced DNA DSB studies of methanogens isolated from East Calcutta Wetland

The project involves isolation of microbes in Methanogen specific medium and its complete characterization follows.

Student

Ms. Sanhita Chowdhury

Medical Microbiology

Analysis of Microbial Population in urine from normal and UTI patients

UTI is one of the most common infections and the prevalence of infection differs with age, sex, and certain predisposing factors. It affects as many as 50% women at least once during their lifetime and 25% of those who acquire UTI, will have another infection within the following six months. The diagnosis of the infections become important as urinary pathogens are increasingly resistant to commonly used antibiotics. The identification is most useful in complex clinical cases in order to distinguish relapse, to indicate failure of an antibiotic treatment, and to detect reinfection with a different organism in patients with recurrent infections. Thus the objective is to determination of Range ( in CFU / ml ) of urinary tract micro flora in normal control individuals [ UTI negative ].

Determination of range (in CFU/ ml) of microbes in UTI positive patients. The preliminary study is culture based in order to have a statistical analysis of the presence of microbes. Further study aims at designing specific probes for rapid identification of microbes within the sample

PhD student

Ms. Poulomi Nandy

Project students

Mr. Soumen Roy (M.Sc Life Science)
Dr. Shantanu Samanta

Publications

- Characterization of bacterial strains isolated through microbial profiling of urine samples. Online Journal of Biological sciences, 2007, 7(1): 44-51.

Research Area

Project title

Funding Agency

1. Microbial biodiversity screening and microbial genetic
resource management of East Calcutta Wetlands using the culture independent approach.

DST, Govt. of India

2. Exploring the edibility of fish and vegetables cultivated in the East Calcutta Wetlands.

3. Exploring and exploiting the microbial resource of East Calcutta Wetland

i. Isolation and characterization of potential microbes
(Protease/lipase secreting)
ii. Application in bioremediation
(Heavy Metal/ oil remediation)
iiii. Commercial Product development

(Enzymes in detergent and dehairing)

4. Screening of potent microbes from different sites of India

Protease secreting microbes from marine origin Magnetotactic bacteria from mineral ore rich sites

5. Studies on heavy ion irradiated metal induced radiation sensitization in Bacillus subtilis.

IUAC, UGC

6. Studies on nanocrystal formation in microbes undergoing heavy ion irradiation

IUAC, UGC

7. Ionizing radiation induced DNA DSB studies of methanogens isolated from East Calcutta wetland

IUC, Dept. of Atomic Energy

8. Development of sulphate reducing bioremediation package for Jaduguda Effluent discharge.

BRNS, Dept. of atomic Energy

9. Isolation and characterization of sulfate reducing bacteria from East Calcutta Wetland

CSIR (fellowship)
bacteria from East Calcutta Wetland

10. Analysis of Microbial Population in urine from normal and UTI patients.

Collaborators

Inter University Consortium, DAE, Kolkata Center
West Bengal Pollution Control Board, Kolkata
EPRC, Bangladesh