DBT Sponsored- BIF Centre (PR-15)

Project Investigator/Coordinator : Dr V.Verma , Professor-SoBT

• The Bioinformatics Infrastructure Facility (BIF) Centre at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra started functioning from October, 2008 with Prof.(Dr.) V.Verma as the project co-ordinator. The centre is currently fulfilling the needs of more than hundred UG & PG students, more than fifty research scholars and faculty of the School of Biotechnology. In addition to this research scholars and faculty of other departments of the university as well as from nearby institutes/universities also use the BIF facility. Our BIF Centre is actively involved in Bioinformatics training programs to both in-house and external students of the region via regular yearly workshops organised. The resource people invited for the workshops are reputed scientists, faculty from the academia and industry. School of Biotechnology in association with BIF is working on the areas of NGS analysis of the metagenomic DNA isolated from the extreme unique niches of North Western Himalayas, Computational Molecular Dynamics Simulations studies in the broad field of Cancer marker proteins, Studying the mechanisms of inhibition of drug-like compounds of the important drug targets of Mycobacterium tuberculosis like FtsZ ,DnaGprimase and pantothenate synthase, and Genetics of Rare Human Disorders.
• Microbial taxonomical characterization of the metagenomic DNA, isolated from the frozen soil sample of a glacier in Northern Western Himalayas (NWH), was analysed through next generation sequencing. The community was found to be comprised of 16 phyla with representation of members belonging to Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Verrumicrobia, Thaumarchaeota, Actinobacteria, Bacteriodetes, Chloroflexi, etc. At the genus level Bradyrhizobium was the most abundant as compared to other genera like Candidatusentotheonella, Nitrospora, Candidatussolibacter, Gemmatimonas, Ktedonobacter. The number of genes annonated through KEGG, GO, Pfam, COG, FIG databases were generated by COGINZER. The annotation of genes assigned in each group from the metagenomics data through COG database and the number of genes annotated in different pathways through KEGG database was also being reported. Besides, a number of gene ORFs have been identified which are being exploited for commercial purposes after cloning these in suitable cloning & expression vectors.
• Researchers of our group identified and characterized – a hydrolase with esterase activity expressed from a fosmid gene bank prepared from DNA of a North West Himalayan glacier frozen soil sample.An efficient protocol for increased Fosmid transformation in preparation of Metagenomic gene bank has been proposed. Besides, study on the thermos-stability of lipase from marine Streptomyces using atomistic molecular dynamics simulations.
• Mechanism of inhibition of benzimidazoles in Mycobacterium tuberculosis–FtsZ (an important drug target and cytoskeletal cell division protein) by employing docking, molecular dynamics simulations and MMGBSA analysis was proposed. Study has been carried out to model Dna G primasea potent Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) target and employ in silico virtual screening to identify potent inhibitors against it. Another important drug target inMtb. Panthothanatesynthasehas been studied and various chemical libraries have been screened against it to identify the novel inhibitors which could be studied and validated in the wet lab. The BIF at SMVDU has been associated with the collaborations with the international universities of repute like the Department of Molecular Medicine and USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Research and Institute, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA and Laboratory of New Methods in Biology, Institute for Biological Instrumentation, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142290 Pushchino, Moscow Region, Russia.
• The staff recruited in BIF is actively participating in the various national and international conferences, workshops and meetings in India and abroad to broaden the vision on the latest developments the field.
• The Centre is also actively catering to the needs of the students, research scholars and the faculty of the School of Biotechnology. Workshops that have been organized in past years for the training of the in-house as well as research scholars and faculty of various guest Institutes/Universities has been a continuous success. In addition to this regular visit of Graduate Schools of region is also promoted. The students are given a flavour of Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Drug Designing that do not have access to the computational resources. Students can also take down our Molecular Dynamics Simulation trajectories for research and training purpose. Recognizing the role of internet and websites like YouTube in learning and teaching we have started working on the making of learning videos in the field of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics that would be soon uploaded on our YouTube Channel.

Database developed

Bioinformatics infrastructure available at centres