CRISPR-Cas System in Translational Biotechnology

Dr Swati Joshi earned PhD in Microbiology from University of Delhi, India. During her Ph.D., she focused on developing industrial strains of methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. Currently she is working as Assistant Professor and BioCARe Women Scientist at School of Life Sciences, Central University of Gujarat (CUG), Gandhinagar, where she is engaged in working in the interdisciplinary field of industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, employing next gen platforms. She has published many peer reviewed scientific papers, reviews and book chapters. She has been conferred with Dr M. J. Thirumalachar Young Scientist Award by Mycological Society of India (MSI) and Young Scientist Award by Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI). She is life member of BRSI, MSI, AMI and Indian Lichenological Society (ILS). Digvijay Verma has been working in the field of genomics and metagenomics for the last 10 years. He has expertise in heterologous expression of genes from extreme environments into the various Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial hosts. His research work on proteins reflects his extensive understanding of industrial biotechnology and extremophilic microorganisms. His laboratory is engaged in exploiting therapeutic bioactive molecules from extreme habitats using metagenomic approaches. He is also in a phase of developing pipelines for robust microbiome analysis. Dr. Verma has also been working on analyzing the oral microbiome from the Indian community and the influence of external risk factors on the overall oral bacterial composition. He is a life member of many scientific organizations like the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI), Biotech Research Society of India (BRSI), and Indian Science Congress (ISC). He is coauthor of Microorganisms for Sustainable Environment and Health (Elsevier, 2020). Ravi Kr. Gupta was awarded with several national level scholarships from CSIR and ICMR during his doctoral study and his PhD thesis was awarded Dr. M. M. Dhar Award. Then he moved to the USA as a postdoctoral fellow to enhance his research skills with the state-of-the art techniques in genes and small non-coding RNA regulation in bacteria. Currently he works as assistant professor of microbiology at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A Central University). His long-term research goals are to better understand the regulatory mechanism of small non-coding RNAs and their role in human and animal pathogens that may lead to the development of alternative therapeutic approach to treat infections. His laboratory is also working to identify novel antimicrobials from natural sources against gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens.