Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering

Dr. Amit Kumar Rai is presently working as Scientist - C at Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, Regional Centre, Sikkim. He has completed his doctorate from CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore on application of lactic acid fermentation for recovery nutraceuticals from fish and animal processing by-products. As an independent researcher, Dr. Amit has contributed in the area of Food Biotechnology for the production of nutraceuticals and functional foods rich in bioactive peptides and isoflavones using microorganisms associated with traditional fermented foods of North East India. To his credit, he has totally 45 publications including 31 publications in SCI Journals and 12 chapters in the book published by various International publishers. His performance as a researcher has resulted in the bestowment of the Young Scientist Award 2016 from Association of Food Scientist and Technologists (India), Young Scientist Award 2015 by Association of Microbiologist of India, AU-CBT Excellence Award 2009 by the Biotech Research Society of India, Award for excellence in Food Biotechnology 2016 from Society of Applied Biotechnology and several best presentation award at National and International conferences. Dr. Amit Kumar Rai is presently working as Scientist - C at Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, Regional Centre, Sikkim. He has completed his doctorate from CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore on application of lactic acid fermentation for recovery nutraceuticals from fish and animal processing by-products. As an independent researcher, Dr. Amit has contributed in the area of Food Biotechnology for the production of nutraceuticals and functional foods rich in bioactive peptides and isoflavones using microorganisms associated with traditional fermented foods of North East India. To his credit, he has totally 45 publications including 31 publications in SCI Journals and 12 chapters in the book published by various International publishers. His performance as a researcher has resulted in the bestowment of the Young Scientist Award 2016 from Association of Food Scientist and Technologists (India), Young Scientist Award 2015 by Association of Microbiologist of India, AU-CBT Excellence Award 2009 by the Biotech Research Society of India, Award for excellence in Food Biotechnology 2016 from Society of Applied Biotechnology and several best presentation award at National and International conferences. Dr. Sudhir P. Singh obtained his Ph.D. in the year 2011 from University of Lucknow, India. Subsequently, he worked as research associate and then as Project Scientist at National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali, India. He joined Center of Innovative and Applied Bioprocessing, Mohali, India in 2015, as Scientist-C. He has been working in the area of molecular biology, and synthetic biology. In the area of plant molecular biology his some of the significant contribution are: development stringently regulated expression systems for inducing male sterility and male sterility-fertility restoration system in plants, investigation of tissue and cell-type specific distribution pattern of mineral nutrients in wheat grains and its possible impacts on bioavailability, the first transcriptome analysis and molecular insights into seed development biology in the fruit crops, Custard apple and Litchi, and secondary metabolite pathways in Rose-scented geranium, development of approaches based on Rootstock-scion or modified viral genome based long distance signalling as possible strategies for inducing trait modification such as seedlessness. His current research focus is towards development of synthetic biocatalysts for biotransformation of agro-industrial by-products and residues into value added biomolecules. In the area of biosynthetic technology his some of the significant contribution are: development of novel approaches for transformation of agro-industrial resi...