10^th Asia-PacificBiotech Congress July 25-27, 2016 Bangkok, Thailand

Biography:

Jin Ho LEE graduated University of Utah, USA with Ph.D. degree in 1988. He worked at Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) as a senior research scientist from 1988 to 1993. Since 1993, he is a professor in Hannam University, Korea. He was a President of Korean Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society (KTERMS) (2012). He was selected as a Fellow within the TERMIS in 2015. His recent research area includes stem cells/biocompatible polymer hybrid materials (scaffolds, membranes, microparticles, and hydrogels) for tissue regenerations such as cartilage, bone, tendon, muscle, trachea, vocal fold, and nerves.

Abstract:

Growth factors [basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and/or nerve growth factor (NGF)]-immobilized polycaprolactone (PCL)/Pluronic F127 microspheres were prepared using an isolated particulate-melting method and the sequential binding of heparin and growth factors (GFs) onto the microspheres. The GFs immobilized on the microspheres were released in a sustained manner over 28 days, regardless of GF type. From the in vitro culture of muscle-derived stem cells, it was observed that the NGF-immobilized microspheres induced more neurogenic differentiation than the bFGF-immobilized microspheres, as evidenced by a quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction using specific neurogenic markers (Nestin, GFAP, β-tubulin, and MAP2) and Western blot (markers, Nestin and β-tubulin)] analyses. The dual bFGF/NGF-immobilized microspheres showed better neurogenic differentiation than the microspheres immobilized with single bFGF or NGF. From the preliminary animal study, the dual bFGF/NGF-immobilized microsphere group also showed effective nerve regeneration, as evaluated by immunocytochemistry using a marker, β-tubulin. The dual bFGF/NGF-immobilized PCL/Pluronic F127 microspheres may be a promising candidate for nerve regeneration in certain target tissues (i.e., muscles) leading to sufficient reinnervation [This work was supported by a grant of Korea Ministry of Health & Welfare (HI14C0522)].

Biography:

Jin Ho Lee was graduated from the University of Utah, USA with PhD degree in 1988. He has worked at Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) as a Senior Research Scientist from 1988 to 1993. Since 1993, he is a Professor in Hannam University, Korea. He was a President of Korean Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society (KTERMS) (2012). He was selected as a Fellow within the TERMIS in 2015. His recent research area includes stem cells/biocompatible polymer hybrid materials (scaffolds, membranes, microparticles and hydrogels) for tissue regenerations such as cartilage, bone, tendon, muscle, trachea, vocal fold and nerves.

Abstract:

Peripheral nerves function as communication paths between the brain and muscle/organ/skin and injury to these nerves leads to the severe loss of sensory or motor functions. Although the understanding of nerve regeneration and the development of surgical techniques are rapidly growing, sufficient restoration of damaged nerves still remains a big challenge. Recently, artificial nerve guide conduit (NGC) to bridge the gap between severed peripheral nerve stumps has been demonstrated to be a promising strategy for the treatment of damaged nerves. It is well known that the nerve regeneration is mediated by gradients of bioactive molecules including nerve growth factor (NGF; chemotaxis). In this study, the NGF gradient NGC was fabricated by rolling an asymmetrically porous polycaprolactone (PCL)/Pluronic F127 membrane with NGF gradient. The NGF loading amount and NGF release profile along the NGF gradient were investigated. The NGF immobilized on the NGC was continuously release up to 28 days, regardless of the NGF concentration. The nerve regeneration behaviors through the NGF gradient NGC were compared to the NGC with uniform NGF immobilization using a SD rat with a 2 cm long sciatic nerve defect. From the animal study, it was recognized that the NGF gradient NGC shows greater nerve regeneration behavior than the uniform NGF group. Based on our findings, it is suggested that the NGC with asymmetrically porous structure and gradient of NGF concentration can be a simple and effective therapeutic technique to accelerate the reinnervation rate and provide sufficient functional recovery of peripheral nerves.

Biography:

Dora Garcia Delgado is graduated in Foreign Trade Economy, Diplomat in Foreign Trade, Masters in Science and PhD in Economic Science from Havana University. She was trained at Business Support Centers Japan 2001 and Seoul 2003. She has attended international symposiums: Osaka Trade Fair 1998, XIII Gastroenterology Congress Queta, Pakistan, 1999, Health Tourist Congress Bali, Indonesia 2000, Bio Expo Korea 2002, SAITEX 2011 South Africa and others. She has participated in several negotiations of Cuban biotechnology products. She has publications in Journal Applied Biotechnology of Cuba: About negotiation of Biotechnology products with intangibles, the evolution of negotiation of biotechnology products further than the intellectual property protection and methodology for the valuation and negotiation of Biotechnology Products with Intangibles.

Abstract:

Heber Biotec S A, a Commercialized Company from the Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba. The High Tech Enterprise is playing an important role in the economy among other aspects as a source of high aggregated value products and intangible assets. The biotechnology enterprise is an exponent of this enterprise. Upon the basis of a document analysis and experts interchange applying Delphis method, a diagnostic is done concerning the treatment given to the biotechnology products with intangibles during negotiations. From such diagnostic the lack of a standard calculation method and the lack of a guide for preparing negotiations were identified as well as the lack of commercial culture concerning the biotechnology products with intangibles negotiation. The general objective of this work is to design a methodology for the valuation and deal making of biotechnology products. For the fulfillment of this objective a deep bibliography was reviewed granting the required concepts to design the methodology which establishes a sequence for the negotiation, recommends a calculation method and some accurate data like the range of payments, royalties percentages, coefficients to separate the intangibles form the total value of the biotechnology project or product. In the whole bibliography reviewed no other guide was found with the integration of calculation method and negotiation methodology in a sequence that become this methodology in a practical tool that allow to entrepreneur who start in biotechnology to evaluate and prepare a biotechnology product negotiation.

Biography:

Hsiu-Lin Huang has received her PhD in Molecular Biology in 2010 from National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan. She has joined MingDao University in 2011 as an Assistant Professor of Department of Biotechnology. Her research interests are SNP genotyping, DNA fingerprinting, cell biology and microbiology.

Abstract:

In this work we firstly proposed lateral flow assay combined with primer extension (PEXT) and gold nanoparticles to SNP genotyping of tmigd1 gene in Tsaiya duck which has advantages of easy operation, cost effective and time saving. The gold nanoparticles were tailed with thiol-(dT)30 using salt aging method at 25 oC and used as label of lateral flow assay. The lateral flow device is mainly composed of test and control zone on the nitrocellulose membrane containing streptavidin and d(A)30, respectively. When the specific SNP exists, the corresponding primers can be extended and then the reaction product will be able to be captured by streptavidin in the test zone due to the introduction of biotin-dUTP into the reaction product during PEXT. Gold nanoparticles will hybridize with reaction product to make it become visible. Here we reported the optimized parameters of Mg2+ in PEXT reaction and streptavidin on membranes to detect the signal specificity. In addition, it is found that increasing amount of PCR product and PEXT reaction cycle number result in the increase of the signal intensity without observable change of signal specificity.

Biography:

Luciana is graduated in pharmacy and biochemistry, has a master degree in biotechnology and is currently a PhD student of pharmaceutical sciences program at the University of São Paulo.

Abstract:

Biotransformation studies can be useful for the production of new molecules with industrial and pharmaceutical interest. The lapachol, a natural product, is a naphthoquinone that presents many biological activities, which have potential uses in the pharmaceutical industry. The aim of this work is to analyze the proteome profile of Phanerochaete chrysosporium during the lapachol biotransformation process. The microorganism was cultivated in 250 mL Erlenmeyer flasks containing 50 mL of soy-glucose medium and incubated on a rotary shaker at 120 rpm at 30°C. After 24 hours, the mycelial mass was transferred to a Czapeck medium containing lapachol solution in DMSO (final concentration of 25 µg/mL) and bioprocess was continued for 24 hours. Control, without lapachol was also made. The mycelial mass was lysed, the proteins were precipitated with TCA 10% and acetone and 2D electrophoresis was performed in triplicate. The gels were analyzed by ImageLab 2D platinum v7.0 (GE) software. In addition, the proteolytic activity of intracellular proteome and secretome were determined using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) substrate. It identified 621 and 585 spots of control and lapachol respectively. Of these, we obtained 399 common to both, 222 control exclusive and 186 lapachol exclusive. Only the control secretome showed proteolytic activity. The obtained results suggest that the fungus modifies the profile of the proteins production during the lapachol biotransformation process.

Biography:

Bogyu Choi has completed her PhD from Ewha Womans University in 2010 from the Department of Chemistry and Nano Science and Postdoctoral studies from University of California, Los Angeles (2014), School of Dentistry. She is a Research Professor at CHA University. She has published more than 30 scientific papers and her papers were cited 630 times (h-index=16).

Abstract:

The physical microenvironment has been reported to direct cell fate. Here, we found that the physical microenvironment, stiffness of hydrogels promotes the reprogramming of mouse embryonic fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). We prepared cell culture substrates of various stiffnesses (0.1, 1, 4, 10, and 20 kPa) using a polyacrylamide hydrogel. We found that culture on a soft hydrogel plays an important role in inducing cellular reprogramming into iPSCs via activation of mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition and enhancement of stemness marker expression. These results suggest that physical signals at the interface between cell and substrate can be used as a potent regulator to promote cell fate changes associated with reprogramming into iPSCs, which may lead to effective and reproducible iPSC production.

Biography:

Chun-Yeung Lo has obtained his BSc degree in Biochemistry at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2010 and he is currently a PhD student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research is on the screening of inhibitors against influenza virus. He has also obtained several lead compounds that inhibit influenza virus through interacting with the viral nucleoprotein and the work has been published in Biodesign in 2015.

Abstract:

Influenza virus has always been a major threat to humankind, causing sporadic pandemics and recurrent annual epidemics. Moreover, as influenza virus is developing resistance to existing anti-virals, it is essential to design new drugs against it. The influenza RNA-dependent RNA polymerase consists of three subunits: PA, PB1 and PB2. By blocking the protein-protein interactions among these subunits, the viral RNA polymerase complex would fail to assemble, thereby inhibiting influenza virus replication. The co-crystal structure of PA-C terminal and PB1-N terminal was resolved in 2008. It was shown that PB1 binds to PA by inserting a short helix into a hydrophobic core of PA and the residues at the interacting interface are well conserved within type A Influenza. We employed in silico screening to identify small molecules that most likely would block the PAPB1 interaction. Compound databases were archived from zinc (UCSF) and commercial vendors (e.g., SPECS) and then virtually docked to the PA hydrophobic core by Autodock 4.0. Top results were then subjected to post-screening evaluation, including visual inspection by molecular visualization software (e.g., Pymol) and prediction of drug-likeness by Lipinski’s rules. After post-screening analysis, we selected ~150 potential hit compounds for primary screening, which involves cytotoxicity assay and ribonucleoprotein (RNP) activity assay. Two hit compounds, compound 221 and 312, were able to inhibit influenza RNP activities and attenuate viral growth. Compound 312 also delayed the death of influenza virus PR8 infected mice. The identification of hit compounds provides the basis for future optimization and lead compound development against influenza virus.

Biography:

Juneyoung Jung has completed his undergraduate study in Daejin University, Korea. Currently, he is a graduate student of Master/PhD combined program in the Department of Life and Nanopharmaceutical Sciences Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, South Korea. His research project is to developed inhibitory peptides in autophagy. He was involved in a project of a protein fragment of Beclin 1 that is known to be a binding domain of VPS34 purification using E. coli. Presently, he continues work on the development of specific peptides which has inhibitory effect on VPS34 complex.

Abstract:

Beclin 1 recruits several autophagy-specific factors such as ATG14L and UVRAG, on the catalytic subunit of Class III Phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (known as Vps34) to form an autophagy-initiating PIK3C3/VPS34 complex. Beclin 1 contains several characteristic protein-protein interaction domains for a variety of proteins that determine the function of the resulting complex. Therefore, the investigation of these domains is important to understand the roles of Beclin 1 as a scaffolding subunit of PIK3C3/VPS34 complex. In the present study, we have prepared the bacterial overexpression system to obtain Vps34-binding domain of Beclin 1 (Vps34-BD), but the proteins was quite unstable and presented as an inclusion body in E. coli. With several condition tests for protein expression and purification, we have set up the optimized protocol with the denaturing purification method. Vps34-binding assay has confirmed that the bacterially-purified Vps34-BD is soluble and functional.

Biography:

Mario Andrea Marchisio has obtained his PhD in Physics at the University of Trento, Italy in 2002. After working for four years at the CILEA computing center in Milan, Italy, he spent six years as a Post Doc at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Since September 2013, he is working as an Associate Professor in Synthetic Biology at the Harbin Institute of Technology, China.

Abstract:

One of the main goals of Synthetic Biology is the development of software that drives the assembly of DNA circuits into cells. Our software, called “Parts & Pools”, permits the visual, drag and drop design of synthetic gene circuits in yeast and other eukaryotes. The name derives from the fact that, in our framework, gene circuits are made of two kinds of components: Parts (i.e., DNA sequences such as promoters, coding regions, and terminators) and pools which can contain proteins, RNA and chemicals. “Parts & Pools” as an add-on of ProMoT (Process Modeling Tool) is a collection of Python and Perl scripts. Each script generates a biochemical model for a DNA partor a pool. Models for circuit components are encoded in MDL (Model Definition Language) such that they can be loaded on ProMoT and used for complex circuit design. The model of a genetic circuit, which arises from the composition of the models of its components, can be exported to SBML (System Biology Markup Language) or Matlab language for simulations and analysis. Genetic networks are modeled according to full mass action kinetics. In order to generate models for components characterized by a large number of species and reactions (e.g., regulated promoters) “Parts & Pools” makes use of BioNetGen (rule-based modeling approach). Currently, we are working on several software improvements: A grammar for a textual circuit description, an export function to the Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) and a connection to a database containing yeast sequences characterized in our lab.

Biography:

Rattrikorn Ganphung was graduated from Department of Agricultural and Technology at Thammasat University in Thailand in 2013. Presently she is pursuing Masters in Agriculture and Forest Science, Faculty of Life and Environmental Science at Shimane University, Shimane, Japan.

Abstract:

Powdery mildew caused by Podosphaera xanthii is a destructive fungal disease affecting cucurbitaceous crops production. The use of chemical fungicides is an important method for protecting crops against diseases. However, strains of the pathogen causing powdery mildew in cucurbitaceous crops have been reported to develop resistance to the currently used fungicides. On the other hand, biological control by microorganisms is attracted attention for control plant diseases. Recently, we isolated a Streptomyces strain, STS1, as a contaminating microorganism from a potato sucrose agar culture plate kept open in a field. In this paper, we report that strain STS1 can protect cucumber from powdery mildew caused by P. xanthii. When cucumber leaves pretreated with strain STS1 cell culture were inoculated with P. xanthii conidia 24 hours after strain STS1 cell culture pretreatment, lesion formation was inhibited compared to control leaves pretreated with distilled water. The colony formation of strain STS1 was not inhibited at 20-28 °C. Furthermore, colony formation of strain STS1 was not inhibited in the presence of several fungicides. The sequence analysis of 16S rDNA region indicated that strain STS1 exhibited high sequence similarities with Streptomyces blastmyceticus. These results suggest that the strain STS1 may be useful for protecting cucurbitaceous crops from powdery mildew caused by P. xanthii. However, this protective antifungal substance has not been identified yet. Thus, further studies are required to identify the active antifungal substances secreted in the culture filtrate of strain STS1.

Biography:

Seong-Min Won has obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Department of Medical Biotechnology at Soonchunhyang University in 2015. She has been working on the research project focusing on the bioactivities of the Tenebrio molitor extracts since she was an undergraduate student. She has joined the graduate school at Soonchunhyang University in 2015 and started her own research projects for her Master’s degree.

Abstract:

Tenebrio molitor is one of largest insects and whose larva is consumed as food sources in many countries. Nutritional composition of Tenebrio molitor has been studied recently and contains high proteins, unsaturated fatty acids and valuable minerals. However, the bio-activity of Tenebrio molitor has not been fully understood. We examined the effect of Tenebrio molitor on resistance to oxidative stress and organism’s lifespan using C. elegans as a model system. The response to heat shock and ultraviolet irradiation was also monitored in vivo. The extracts from Tenebrio molitor showed significant effects on resistance to oxidative stress and ultraviolet irradiation and extends both mean and maximum lifespan in C. elegans. Number of progeny produced was also significantly increased in animals supplemented with the Tenebrio molitor extracts. In addition, the expression of longevity assurance genes, hsp-16.2 and sod-3, was markedly up-regulated by the supplementation with the Tenebrio molitor extracts. These findings suggest that Tenebrio molitor can affect organism’s response to stressors and extend lifespan via the induction of longevity assurance genes in C. elegans.

Biography:

Seung-Won Park has completed his PhD from Catholic University of Korea and Postdoctoral studies from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. He is the Assistant Professor of Catholic University of Daegu, South Korea. He has published more than 25 papers in reputed journals.

Abstract:

Nitric oxide is the principal mediator of smooth muscle relaxation and erectile function of corpus cavernosum. A baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) is used routinely to produce recombinant proteins in the milligram scale. PnTx2-6, a toxin from Phoneutria nigriventer spider venom, modulates voltage gated Na+ channels and activation of NO production. PnTx2-6 consists of a signal peptide, Glu-rich region and a mature toxin of 48 amino acids. To purify the recombinant PnTx2-6 protein from cells over-expressing the Phoneutria nigriventer spider venom full-length PnTx2-6 gene, recombinant baculovirus is infected and recovered in the Sf9 cells. As a result, recombinant PnTx2-6 protein was efficiently expressed and extracted from the insect cells using the BEVS. Further studies are required to whether PnTx2-6 was able to increase production rate of NO by NOS and can be released from the endothelium in certain vascular disease.

Biography:

Kang Bo Shim has completed his PhD from Seoul National University. He is a Senior Researcher of Crop Cultivation & Environment Research Division, National Institute of Crop Science, Rural Development Administration of South Korea. He has published more than 20 papers.

Abstract:

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is an important edible oil crop. Meteorological factors such as temperature, rainfall and the amount of solar radiation determine the yield potential of sesame. To identify phenotypic diversity and to infer genotypic backgrounds in a collection of 250 sesame germplasm, we classified the germplasm based on variation in morphological traits using principal component (PC) and cluster analysis. The sesame germplasm were grouped based on five PCs, which accounted for 82.3% of total variation. The first PC (PC1) was positively correlated with days to flowering, days to maturity and number of capsules per plant whereas the second PC (PC2) was negatively correlated with all characteristics except capsule-bearing stem length. The third component (PC3) was highly positively correlated with capsule length and plant height. We constructed a scatter diagram of the first two PCs (PC1 vs. PC2), revealing four distinct groups of eigenvectors. Most sesame germplasm were widely distributed among Groups I, II, III and IV. Group III showed a wide range of distribution in the diagram. Otherwise, the distribution of the 250 germplasm was more compact in a scatter diagram of PC1 vs. PC3 compared with PC1 vs. PC2. Groups I, II, III and IV contained 142, 102, 2 and 3 sesame germplasm, respectively. The two germplasm in Group III were collected from different regions, as were the three germplasm in Group IV. The results show that the distribution of sesame origin is wider than the regions examined in view of phenotypic diversity.

Biography:

Sun-Mi Beak has obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Department of Medical Biotechnology at Soonchunhyang University in 2015. She has been working on the research project focusing on the anti-stress and anti-aging effects of cysteine derivatives since she was an undergraduate student. She has joined the graduate school at Soonchunhyang University in 2015 and started her own research projects for her Master’s degree.

Abstract:

Lots of studies show that nutritional interventions with anti-oxidants can modulate many age related physiological changes in various model organisms. Here, we examined the effect of S-allyl-L-cysteine (SAC) on resistance to environmental stressors and locomotional changes with aging using C. elegans as a model system. SAC is a modified amino acid that is known to have a strong antioxidant activity. The survival of worms under oxidative stress conditions induced by hydrogen peroxide was significantly increased by supplementation of SAC. Pre-treatment of SAC significantly increased resistance to both heat stress and UV irradiation. Then, we examined the effect of SAC on motility of C. elegans and found that SAC can retard age related decline of locomotion. The supplementation with SAC showed anti-Alzheimer’s disease activity: SAC increased resistance to amyloid beta-induced toxicity. Having observed anti-stress effects of SAC, we tested the effect of SAC derivatives on resistance to oxidative stress and found that among nine SAC derivatives screened, four SAC derivatives had a strong anti-oxidant activity in vivo. Further studies will focus on the identification of other bio-activities of SAC derivatives and anti-aging effects of SAC and its derivatives. Our study will broaden the understanding of bio-activities of SAC and suggest a possible application of SAC and its derivatives to the development of anti-stress and anti-aging compounds.

Biography:

Tae-Hoon Kim has completed his undergraduate at Kongju National University in Korea. Currently he is Master’s student in Department of Life and Nanopharmaceutical Sciences, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea. His master project is to develop rapid molecular diagnostic kits for pathogen detection and he participated in part, Brucella detection kit development. He continues his work on the development on Salmonella detection kit.

Abstract:

Rapid detection and timely treatment of brucellosis is important for increasing the curative ratio, to prevent disease spread among animals and to reduce the risk of transfer to humans. In this study, we developed a rapid molecular diagnostics and differentiation method for Brucella species using convection Palm polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Three Brucella genus representatives, B. abortus, B. melitensis and B. suis, were successfully identified and differentiated. A common primer, IS711, specific to all Brucella species tested in this study and species-specific primers were used. When these primer sets were used in convection PCR, each species-specific primer set specifically detected the target species. Multiplex detection was performed with a mixture of the common forward and all reverse primers and three distinct species-specific DNA amplicons were unambiguously detected. Sensitivity of detection was also tested and tens or hundreds of copies, depending on the species were detected using this PCR approach and gel electrophoresis. The PCR reaction time could be reduced to 20 min with distinct, detectable DNA amplicons. These results suggest that the ultra-fast multiplex detection of Brucella species developed in this study may be useful in rapid field applications.

Biography:

Youssef Ali Abou Hamin Neto has completed his Master of Science from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto (2012) and graduate degree in Pharmacy from the Federal University of Alfenas (2009). He is currently pursuing PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the concentration area of Natural and Synthetic Products under the guidance of Professor Dr. Hamilton Cabral, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto of University of São Paulo.

Abstract:

Introduction: Proteases are biocatalysts that hydrolyze polypeptides into peptides and/or amino acids. Each enzyme has specificity to substrate and cleavage site, these characteristics influence the product sequence and consequently the potential application. The proteases have been used to obtain peptides from food proteins, these products can present biological activities such as antioxidant, antitumor, antimicrobial and anti hypertensive and currently the main source of peptides are milk proteins.

Biography:

D. Natarajan is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Periyar University, Salem, Tamilnadu since October, 2008. He obtained his post-graduation and Doctoral degree (Botany) from Bharathidasan University,Trichy, Tamilnadu in 2003. His research interest includes Herbal and Microbial Biotechnology, Plant tissue culture, Bio/phytoremediation and Bio-nanomedicine. He has published more than 100 research articles both National and International journals and 63 conference attended/presented papers and 4 book chapters for his research credentials. He has operated four major projects funded by Indian Government agencies like UGC, DST, ICMR & TNSCST (worth of Rs. 45 lakhs) during his career at Periyar University. He was the recipient of the Young Scientist award for 2013 by SERB, New Delhi and he has awarded at the prestigious author award by OMICS International 2011. So far, he has guided 10 Ph.D and 20 M. Phil scholars

Abstract:

Mosquitoes transmit dreadful diseases, causing millions of deaths every year. Dengue (mosquito borne tropical disease, caused by dengue virus) and Lymphatic filariasis (infected with the filarial worms, Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi or B. timori) diseases are transmitted by mosquito vectors Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasicatus, respectively; vector control strategies include chemical, non-chemical and biological control agents. Repetitive use of man-made insecticides for mosquito control disrupts natural biological control systems and lead to the reappearance of mosquito populations. It also resulted in the development of resistance, harmful effects on non-target organisms and human health problems and subsequent searching for an alternative control measures. Microbial products are effective against mosquitoes at very low dosages with minimum effect on other biological control agents. Therefore, screening for larvicidal activity of microbial extract attributes could lead to the development of new and improved mosquito control methods is economical and safe for non-target organisms. The purpose of the present study is to explore the larvicidal activity of soil borne microbial isolate of Bacillus megaterium, against the targeted mosquito vectors. The bacterium was isolated from soil using standard microbiological methods (serial dilution) and identified as based on colony morphology i.e., white, round, smooth and shiny. Gram staining results found to be Gram positive rods and the presence of endospores. The biochemical tests were performed and the results show catalase positive, oxidase, indole, Vogues-Proskauer negative and citrate positive. Molecular identification (based on 16S rRNA analysis and Genbank database) of the potential strain (OS1) showed 99% similarity with Bacillus megaterium. The results of partial sequenced 16S rRNA gene (with 915 bp in length) were submitted in NCBI Genbank (GenBank Accession number KR061332.1). The supernatant of B. megaterium with equal volume of ethyl acetate: methanol (1:1) was mixed and the upper layer was separated using a rotary evaporator. The separated metabolite has been used to perform the larvicidal potential of Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus larvae. The mortality rate was observed at dose-dependent activity for different stages of larval instars (second, third and fourth) of both mosquitoes. Log Probit analysis (95% confidence level) revealed an LC50 value of 113.256, 168.210, 289.597; LC90 166.735, 224.943, 289.597 and LC50 232.197, 197.659, 70.728; LC90 305.076, 283.773, 133.997 ppm/ml respectively. In the biolarvicidal assay, about 1000 ppm/ml concentration of the isolate (OS1) showed 100% mortality after 48 hours of incubation. This is the first hand information on larvicidal efficiency of ethyl acetate: Methanolic extract from an entomopathogenic bacterium B. megaterium extract and could be suitable for the control of vector borne diseases in humans, especially dengue and filariasis.

Biography:

John Rafael Ambag is currently a Student at the Philippine Science High School Western Visayas Campus in Jaro, Iloilo City, Philippines.

Abstract:

Sea urchins comprise the class Echinoidea under phylum Echinodermata are globular, spiny, hard-shelled organisms that inhabit the ocean floor. Taking to account that microbial populations in sea water may reach numbers as high as 106/mL, marine organisms are exposed in much harsher conditions in comparison to their terrestrial counterparts. Thus, marine organisms rely on complex antimicrobial systems to survive in such condition. Sea urchins have shown various antimicrobial activities. These include the coelomocytes of Paracentrotus lividus and ovary extract of Diadema setosum. Methanolic extract of Tripneustes gratilla showed antibacterial activity. T. gratilla is abundant in the island of Guimaras, Central Philippines. T. gratilla manifest antimicrobial properties against an array of pathogenic bacteria, wherein the highest antimicrobial activity was found in the guts and gonad extracts. However, the information about the bioactive compounds present in this extract is still scarce. Identification of such bioactive compounds is necessary for the confirmation and correlation of the bactericidal effects and also the possibility of discovering novel compounds from this species. For this study, methanolic extract was filtered using Whatmann No. 1 filter paper and 0.5 µm microfilter. Samples were eluded with water, methanol-water and methanol in a Sep-Pak C18 cartridge and then analyzed using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) and compounds detected were identified.

Biography:

Radovan Komel is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana. He pioneered gene technology and initiated medical molecular genetics in Slovenia. As founder and head of the Medical Centre for Molecular Biology he is coordinating national research programme Functional Genomics and Biotechnology for Health. He published more than 150 papers in reputed journals, and has supervised 65 PhD/MSc theses. He is President of Slovenian Society for Natural Sciences, editor of Proteus, a popular science journal, and a member of editorial board of Acta Chimica Slovenica. At present he is coordinating elaboration of Slovenian legislation concerning biomedicine and human genome.

Abstract:

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly lethal form of cancer where the standard therapies of surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy cannot significantly prolong the life expectancy of the patients. Tumour recurrence shows even more aggressive form compared to the primary tumours, and cancer stem cells, resistant to conventional therapy, seem responsible for early relapse. There is a lack of GBM and GBM stem cell biomarkers specific enough to provide early diagnosis of the disease, and efficient targeting therapy. The discovery of heavy-chain-only antibodies (HCAbs) in camelids appears to have opened a new opportunity of searching for cancer markers and developing targeted treatment approaches. HCAb-derived nanobodies (Nbs) are small and stable single-domain antigen-binding fragments with a high degree of sequence identity to the human heavy chain variable domain which offer them advantages over classical antibodies. We immunised an alpaca with a human GBM stem-like cell line prepared from primary GBM cultures. A nanobody library was constructed in a phage-display vector, and using phage-display technology, we selected specific GBM stem-like cell binders through a number of affinity selections. The selected nanobody clones were recloned, expressed in E. coli, and purified by IMAC and size-exclusion chromatography. Specific nanobody:antigen pairs were obtained and MS analysis revealed ten proteins that were up-regulated in the GBM stem-like cells compared to the controls. Following application of Nb234 (anti-TRIM28) and Nb206 (anti-TufM) on different cell lines, variable distribution of TufM during the cell cycle and much higher toxic effect of both Nbs was observed on GBM compared to the control.

Biography:

Gautam Sethi has completed his Postdoctoral training at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and joined Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore in 2008 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. The focus of his research over the past few years has been to elucidate the mechanisms of activation of oncogenic transcription factors such as NF-kB/STAT3 by carcinogens and inflammatory agents and the identification of novel inhibitors of these proteins for prevention of and therapy for cancer. From traditional Chinese and Indian medicinal plants, his group has identified numerous small molecules that can suppress various pro-tumorigenic signaling cascades involved in cancer initiation and promotion. The novel findings of his research work have so far resulted in more than one fifty scientific publications in high impact factor peer-reviewed journals and several international awards. He currently serves as an Academic Editor for prestigious PLOS ONE journal and ad-hoc Reviewer for several other international journals.

Abstract:

STATs comprise a family of cytoplasmic transcription factors that transmit signals, mediate intracellular signaling usually generated at cell surface receptors and transmitted to the nucleus. Numerous studies have demonstrated constitutive activation of STAT3 in a wide variety of human tumors, including blood malignancies (leukemias, lymphomas and multiple myeloma) as well as solid tissues (such as head and neck, breast, lung, gastric, hepatocellular and prostate cancers). There is a strong evidence to suggest that aberrant STAT3 signaling promotes development and progression of human cancers by either inhibiting apoptosis or inducing cell proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis. However, the development of novel drugs for the targeting STAT3 that is both safe and efficacious remains an important scientific and clinical challenge. We will present the data that shows that novel small molecule inhibitors of STAT3/JAK2 pathway can suppress the expression of genes involved in cancer initiation and promotion both in vitro and in vivo.

Biography:

Weizhong Jin has completed his PhD at the age of 35 years from Fudan University. He has published more than 6 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Physician in his Hospital.

Abstract:

The accurate measurement of blood pH and PO2 is often critical in the clinical assessment of patients with severe illness. Continuous intra-arterial blood gas and pH monitoring by use of optical sensors offer certain advantages over other types of sensors. Miniaturization is vital for the continuous intravascular blood gas monitoring probes. But the most recent devices had withdrawn from market partly due to the bundled probes. The present study aimed at preparing and evaluating a pH / PO2 dual-parameter fluorosensor by use of a single optic fiber. We fabricated a fiber-optic pH fluorosensor based on a proton-sensitive fluorescent dye AMPN firstly. A PO2-sensitive filming, in which the PO2-sensitive indicator Ru(dpp)3(PF6)2 was immobilized, was coated to the upper section over the pH sending membrane. The fluorescent intensity at 510 nm and 615 nm was recorded separately when the fabricated dual-parameter probe was excited at 395 nm. Its selectivity and accuracy were analyzed when the probe was exposed to the buffers with different pH or bubbled by 100% N2 or O2 in turn. The sensor emitted green and red dual-color fluorescence simultaneously when excited at 395 nm. Both the two fluorescence intensity peaks at 510 nm and 615 nm changed separately with different pH or PO2 values and weren’t almost interfered each other.The pH / PO2 dual-parameter fluorosensor can determine accurately the two signals simultaneously, making the two signals transmitted through a single optic fiber and miniaturizing the multi-parameter sensor.

Biography:

Virstyuk Nataliya - MD, Professor, member of EASL, engaged liver problems for 18 years, is the author of over 300 publications, is co-author of the monograph \\\"Chronic hepatitis: clinical and etiologic and pathogenetic features.\\\", presented the results of the study of the liver at the International Liver Congresses TM in 2010 (Vienna),in 2011 (Berlin), and in 2012 (Barcelona).

Abstract:

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome (MS) and comprises a disease spectrum ranging from steatosis through nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) to fibrosis and liver cirrhosis. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, which commonly associated with MS or its components. The aim of this study was to investigate the NAFLD biomarker development and progression in psoriasis patients with MS

Biography:

Dr. Vandana Chauhan, is working as assistant professor at Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Noida. She has completed her PhD in 2011. She has worked on projects like Artificial Heart Development, Prostate cancer Prevention at IIT Kharagpur. She is actively involved in work related to adolescence health and cancer. She has total 5 International Publications along with abstracts in many national and International Conferences.

Abstract:

The success of an organism as a pathogen relies on its ability to adhere to the surface and remain there under the protective covering of the extracellular material, which forms the biofilm. The inclination for bacteria to become surface bound is so ubiquitous in diverse ecosystem that it suggests a strong survival and selective advantage for surface dwellers over their free ranging counterparts. Biofilm formation and persistence has profound implications for the patient, because microorganisms growing as biofilm are significantly less susceptible to antibiotics and host defenses than their planktonic forms. Surface modification and wettability of polymer treated at variable RF source power is investigated to study the effect of RF plasma power on extent of surface modification. Plasma treatment was used to modify the implant surface to facilitate the adhesion of antimicrobial drug. Surface topography of the implanted material is one key issue in medical implant infection as bacterial adhesion is a prerequisite condition for biofilm formation. RISUG® (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm under Guidance), a copolymer of styrene maleic acid, is a potent male contraceptive currently undergoing extended Phase III clinical trials in India. In previous studies, RISUG® was evaluated for its antibacterial properties against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative strains of bacteria. The drug has proven to have effective antimicrobial properties. Therefore the drug RISUG® is proposed for coating over implanted polymer surface to overcome initial infection.

Biography:

Yaghoub Asgharzade, PhD student on Medicla physiology at the age of 28 years from shahrekord university of medical science. He has published more than 5 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of repute.

Abstract:

Depressive disorders are common, life-threatening and often disabling. Due to adverse effects of chemical antidepressant drugs, researcher’s attention has been shifted toward natural drug. In this work, the antidepressant effect of were evaluated against reserpine induced depression in mice. This experimental study, 42 male mice were randomly divided into 6 groups of 7 mice. Vehicle mice received normal saline (1 mg/kg, i.p.), negative and positive control groups received reserpine (5mg/kg, i.p.) and fluoxetine (20 mg/kg, i.p.) respectively and treatment groups received Kombucha tea at doses of 250, 500, 1000 mg/kg, 18 h after administration of reserpine. Mice were then tested in the forced swim and Rotarod tests. After behavioral test, blood sample were collected and used to assess blood antioxidant capacity There was significant difference in the duration of immobility time between vehicle and reserpine treated groups (p<0.001). Administration of Kombucha tea at doses of 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg into depressed mice significantly reduced the duration of immobility time. KT administration significantly improved blood antioxidant capacity of mice blood. These results provide support for the potential antidepressant effects of Kombucha tea against.

Biography:

Zhanying Zhang has obtained his PhD in 2008 from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is currently a Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He is an experienced Researcher in fermentation technology, bioprocess optimization and scale-up, biomass pretreatment and biorefinery. He has published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 4 book chapters. He also has 3 patent applications in processing lignocellulosic biomass for the production of fermentable sugars.

Abstract:

Microbial oils have important applications in producing high value fuels and nutraceutical products. In recent years, microbial oil production by oleaginous filamentous fungi has attracted increasing interest because fungi have relatively high growth rates are able to use a variety of carbon sources and have relatively low harvesting cost compared to heterotrophic cultivation of microalgae. Many studies on microbial oil production by filamentous fungi have been focused on low-cost substrates such as lignocellulosic biomass. However, research on morphology control is limited, which is challenging in cultivation of filamentous fungi and critical towards process scale-up and commercialization. We have previously identified an oleaginous filamentous fungus Mucor plumbeus for microbial lipid production. Cultivations of this fungus at different conditions and scales have shown the variation in fungal morphological forms. Different inoculation and process control strategies have been proposed and preliminary tested in order to control the morphological forms of this fungus suitable for reactor cultivation and process scale-up.

Biography:

Sarabjeet Singh Ahluwalia has completed his PhD from Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, (Presently Thapar University), Patiala. He is the Assistant Professor in Biotechnology at General Shivdev Singh Dewan Gurbachan Singh Khalsa College, Patiala, Punjab, India. He has published more than 21 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of repute. He has three patents to his credit. He has reviewed a number of research papers/manuscripts.

Abstract:

A critical situation has aroused due to increased discharge of wastewater containing considerable extent of azo dyes from textile dyeing and manufacturing industries, which requires prior treatment, before being released in order to prevent contamination of natural water courses and ground water. In the present study, Staphylococcus epidermidis MTCC 10623 isolated from contaminated site was explored for the decolorization and degradation of two different types of azo dyes such as Basic Red 46 (BR 46) and Reactive Black 5 (RB 5), extensively used in textile processing industries. S. epidermidis has shown remarkable decolorization potential (99.6 and 97%) for the selected dyes at the concentration of 100 mg/L under optimized conditions (pH: 9.0; temp: 40 and 35 °C) after 6 and 24 hours incubation respectively. Moreover, addition of carbon (glucose: 0.3%) and nitrogen (ammonium sulfate: 0.1%) source as co-substrates enhanced the decolorization potential of S. epidermidis. Further, decolorization of BR 46 and RB 5, was achieved 99.7 and 97.2% decolorization within 6 and 24 hours respectively with immobilized S. epidermidis over polyurethane foam. Biodegradation analysis of metabolites formed after bacterial treatment by UV-Vis and FTIR spectrophotometer confirms the degradation of these dyes. Phytotoxicity assay of extracted metabolites on Triticum aestivum and Vigna radiata showed good germination rate and growth of radical and plumule demonstrating the non-toxic nature of treated dye solution and suggest that this bacterium is the efficient azo dye degrading bacteria and has practical application in biological treatment of dye-polluted wastewater streams.

Biography:

Zurina Zainal Abidin has received her BEng in Chemical Engineering from Loughborough University, UK in 1997, Masters in Biotechnology at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK and PhD in 2006 from University of Manchester, UK in Biochemical Engineering. Earlier, she developed her career as a Process Engineer in Elektrisola (M) Sdn Bhd in 1998. Later in 1999, she joined Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and currently working as an Associate Professor at Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. Her research areas focus on biochemical engineering application on bioseparation using electrokinetics/microarray technology, extraction of bioproducts membrane filtration, biosensor and also wastewater treatment. She has successfully supervised many postgraduate in similar disciplines and also published more than 30 articles in relation to biochemical engineering area.

Abstract:

Pathogens that usually associated with pathogenesis affect human health with massive diseases including chronic infections or immune system disorders. Although numerous vaccinations have been introduced to protect against diseases, some pathogens continues to threaten living life. The current pathogen detection method which based on molecular culture and PCR techniques are essentially slow and time consuming. In recent time, several researchers have attempted to develop rapid detecting tool. Despite advanced engineering, there is still need for an accurate and rapid pathogen detection tool. Thus, this research was carried out to highlight on detection of pathogens using optical biosensor. An optical biosensor (microchannel) is relatively an accurate method of early detection of pathogen. Optical microchannel was fabricated with fiber optics by using photolithography method. Fiber optic biosensor is light scattering, absorption and optical properties of the microorganisms. The chemical composition, energy, the total nucleotides and photo pigments will define the absorption properties of each microorganism. E. coli was detected at region of 280 nm to 285 nm by using the microchannel while, S. cerevisiae identified at visible region of 570 nm to 580 nm. The entire detection can be done in less than 10 minutes with minimum required cells of 1×102 cells per mL with total volume of 6 µl. These detection regions for each sample were compared with spectrophotometer measurement plus theoretical calculations by using Beer Lambert law of absorption.

Biography:

Syarul Nataqain Binti Baharum has received intensive training in the field of Metabolomics at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom under supervision of Professor Dr. Michael Burrell and Professor Dr. William Paul Quick. Her research is focused on the new insight of analytical and biological perspectives of the metabolomics in the field of systems biology. Her work has been awarded prestigious awards including BioInnovation Awards, 2011 and Selangor My Innovation Award, 2014.

Abstract:

Epinephelus fuscoguttatus or tiger grouper has excellent biological characteristics, fast growing and suitable for aquaculture. This posed a promising industry but is unfortunately hindered by a host of diseases, which often associated with feeding leading to great economic loss. Our goal is to study the metabolite responses to vibrosis in grouper and identify unique metabolites as biomarker to help future remediation/prevention of vibriosis. In this work, larvae of grouper were infected with vibriosis, under fed and non-feed conditions. Metabolites were then extracted from infected (challenged) and non-infected (control) larvae, which died and compared with that of survived. Metabolites profiled were obtained using GC-MS based metabolome analysis. The differences between the challenged and control samples were significantly influenced by the production of fatty acids. A total of 11 fatty acids under challenged feeding and 13 fatty acids under challenged starvation of -9 were detected. However, in the control feeding and control starvation conditions, only four fatty acids of -9 were detected namely, lauric acid, myristic acid, palmitic acid and trans-9-palmitoleic acid. The detected compounds were quantified based on three different extraction techniques with the highest at 34 mg/ml and the lowest at 17 mg/ml and mapped in the major fatty acids pathway. There were significant differences (P≤0.001) of -9 production between the challenged and control samples. These changes demonstrate that vibriosis in the fish will induce a biochemical response, especially -9 that can be used as biomarker to determine the survival rate of E. fuscoguttatus.

Biography:

Dr. Lu obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Hong Kong. She is currently Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong (THEi). She is specialised in environmental microbiology, bioenergy production from solid waste and advanced materials development in energy and environment.

Abstract:

Biotransforming organic wastes into energy has been regarded as one of the promising technologies to combat energy crisis in the future. In this study, we queried the highly active functional population in the anaerobic digestion system with various potential substrates (food waste, cellulose, xylan) by integrating the sludge DNA and RNA of subculture from the substrates. Using barcoded 454-pyrosequencing, we analyzed and compared the bacterial and archaeal 16S rRNA genes of one digester sludge (DNA) sample and three subcultures (cDNA) by giving three individual substrates to the digester sludge in order to identify the active members in digesting organic wastes to biomethane. A total of 19K bacterial and 13K archaeal effective sequences were assigned to taxonomy from phylum to genera levels, providing insights into the microbial community structure and further correlating the community members to the performance of the subculture. The principal coordinates analyses on the basis of UniFrac of OTUs revealed that there are significant differences among the digester sludge and digestion culture samples. Cellulose and xylan culture community are more closer to each compared to food waste culture, even though it still has a slight difference between cellulose and xylan culture. Overall, the phylogenetic information based on DNA and RNA provides a comprehensive and systematic view of the anaerobic microbial community within the digestion systems.

Biography:

Hoda M Elzeini has completed her PhD from Michigan State University, USA. She is a Professor in Cairo University, Dairy Science Department of Faculty of Agriculture in Egypt. She has published more than 20 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as a Reviewer for some journals. She is teaching dairy technology and food rheology courses. She was trained in England and India to use advance rheological apparatuses.

Abstract:

Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) widely distributed in nature and play an important role in much food fermentations. Bacterial cell morphology is useful and valuable characteristics used in the identification of any organism in order to classify. Therefore, cell morphological shape and size of four strains of rod LAB grown in two different media (MRS and RSM) were studied using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and image analysis technique. Topographical images reveal rectangular shapes with smooth corners and height profiles and variation in size which occurred singly or in pairs or chains. Rod cells had a wide range of breadth (0.40-1.07 μm) with cells' perimeters of 4.64 up to 11.7 μm and the elongation varies between 0.572 and 0.790 µm. Both areas of Lb. helveticus 764N and Lb. casei 761N were reduced when grown in RSM than in broth medium. On the contrary, cells' areas of Lb. acidophilus 791N and Lb. paracasei 72MP increased when grown in RSM than in broth medium. RSM lowered the compression on cells walls either by the adsorbed water to the surface of the cells or by extra nutrients provides. All the aseptic ratios measured were higher than 1. Rod cells had a different orientation angles and surfaces seem to have heights or extrudes with external boundary was either a sharp outline or a rough surface. Cells hardness and wall thickness affected negatively or positively depending on the strain and growing medium. In conclusion, image analysis of SEM could be a good and accurate tool for measuring many morphology, shape and size parameters for the viable bacterial cells which can be used for identification and classification of rod LAB with determination of defined standard conditions for optimum growth

Biography:

Dora Garcia Delgado is graduated in Foreign Trade Economy, Diplomat in Foreign Trade and Masters in Science and PhD in Economic Science from Havana University. She was trained at Business Support Centers Japan 2001 and Seoul 2003. She has participated in several negotiations of Cuban biotechnology products. She has publications in Journal Applied Biotechnology of Cuba: About negotiation of Biotechnology products with intangibles, the evolution of negotiation of biotechnology products further than the intellectual property protection and methodology for the valuation and negotiation of biotechnology products with intangibles.

Abstract:

Heber Biotec S A, a Commercialized Company from the Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba. The High Tech Enterprise is playing an important role in the economy among other aspects as a source of high aggregated value products and intangible assets. The biotechnology enterprise is an exponent of this enterprise. Upon the basis of a document analysis and experts interchange applying Delphis method, a diagnostic is done concerning the treatment given to the biotechnology products with intangibles during negotiations. From such diagnostic the lack of a standard calculation method and the lack of a guide for preparing negotiations were identified as well as the lack of commercial culture concerning the biotechnology products with intangibles negotiation. The general objective of this work is to design a methodology for the valuation and deal making of biotechnology products. For the fulfillment of this objective a deep bibliography was reviewed granting the required concepts to design the methodology which establishes a sequence for the negotiation, recommends a calculation method and some accurate data like the range of payments, royalties percentages, coefficients to separate the intangibles form the total value of the biotechnology project or product. In the whole bibliography reviewed no other guide was found with the integration of calculation method and negotiation methodology in a sequence that become this methodology in a practical tool that allow to entrepreneur who start in biotechnology to evaluate and prepare a biotechnology product negotiation.

Biography:

D. Natarajan is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Periyar University, Salem, Tamilnadu since October, 2008. He obtained his post-graduation and Doctoral degree (Botany) from Bharathidasan University,Trichy, Tamilnadu in 2003. His research interest includes Herbal and Microbial Biotechnology, Plant tissue culture, Bio/phytoremediation and Bio-nanomedicine. He has published more than 100 research articles both National and International journals and 63 conference attended/presented papers and 4 book chapters for his research credentials. He has operated four major projects funded by Indian Government agencies like UGC, DST, ICMR & TNSCST (worth of Rs. 45 lakhs) during his career at Periyar University. He was the recipient of the Young Scientist award for 2013 by SERB, New Delhi and he has awarded at the prestigious author award by OMICS International 2011. So far, he has guided 10 Ph.D and 20 M. Phil scholars.

Abstract:

Heavy metal pollution spreading to the environment due to human activities such as mining, smelting, e-waste dumping etc. Kolli hills are part of the Eastern Ghats of Tamilnadu harbour rich in biodiversity. Mining activities in study area being created heavy metal contamination in surrounding areas which can affect the microbial, flora and fauna biodiversity and soil fertility. Remediation of heavy metal contaminated sites necessary to turn the beneficial. The indigenous bacteria are evolving as resistant to the heavy metal to some extent such microbes can be used for the metal removal and metal recovery from the polluted sites. This study was aimed to screen the metal resistant bacteria from the heavy metal contaminated soil samples. The efficient two bacterial isolates (A1-2 and A1-3) were isolated and identified as Bacillus spp., through conventional staining and biochemical tests. The bacterial strains were further confirmed by 16S rRNA sequencing and phylogenetic tree which reveals that, the isolates 100 % similarity with the Bacillus thuringiensis and the sequences were submitted to the GenBank. The multi metal resistant of isolates was assessed through the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) method. The bacterial strains were studied for tolerance to heavy metals such as Copper, Chromium, Lead and Zinc in different concentrations ranging from 10, 20, 40 to 640µg/ml. At the concentration of 10µg/ml, B.thuringiensis A1-2 showed resistant of about 98.94 %, 77.91 %, 76.23 % and 60.41 %, whereas, B.thuringiensis A1-3 found 99.66 %, 87.68 % and 98.87 % resistant to Cu, Cr, Pb and Zn respectively. At the concentration of lead (640µg/ml), the isolates A1-2 and A1-3 showed resistant effect of about 44.5 % and 33.39 % and the outcome of this study found that the strains are having the viability to withstand in high lead stress condition. These results confirmed that the both strains were highly tolerant to lead when compared with Cu, Cr and Zn. Further, the antibiotic profiles of these two bacterial strains were investigated by disc diffusion method and show sensitive to tested antibiotics. Thus, the present study suggested that the bacterial isolates explore potential adaptation to the selected heavy metals which can be applicable for the alternative remediation agent to reduce the heavy metals contamination in the hilly environment. This work was funded by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), New Delhi, India (SB/YS/LS-25/2013) under Start up grant for young scientists.

Biography:

Jagdish Singh is a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at North Dakota State University School of Pharmacy and a Fellow of American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and Fellow of Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy. His research efforts focus on the mechanistic studies for developing and testing novel delivery technologies to deliver biotechnologically derived molecules. He has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers and 300 abstracts

Abstract:

The objective of the present work was to develop a delivery system for controlled release of insulin at basal level based on chitosan-zinc-insulin complex incorporated into poly (lactic acid)-poly (ethylene glycol)-poly (lactic acid) (PLA-PEG-PLA, 4500 Da) thermosensitive polymer. In vitro release profile of insulin from the delivery system was studied in phosphate buffered saline, pH 7.4 (PBS). A significant decrease (p<0.05) in the initial burst was observed from the formulation containing chitosan-zinc-insulin complex compared to zinc-insulin, chitosan-insulin and insulin alone. Additionally, the release of insulin was complete with minimal secondary burst. The polymeric formulations containing chitosan-zinc-insulin complex showed a long-term controlled release (~84 days) of insulin. The in vivo absorption and bioactivity of insulin released from the delivery systems were studied in the streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat model. Chitosan-zinc-insulin complex significantly (P<0.05) reduced the initial burst release of insulin from the polymeric delivery system in comparison to zinc-insulin or insulin alone in vivo in rat. The delivery system released insulin for ~3 months in biologically active form with corresponding reduction in blood glucose levels in diabetic rats. The delivery systems were biocompatible both in vitro and in vivo and were non-immunogenic. The results indicate that the chitosan-zinc-insulin complex incorporated in the thermosensitive polymeric delivery system can be used as an alternative to the conventional daily basal insulin therapy

Biography:

Jagdish Singh is a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at North Dakota State University School of Pharmacy and a Fellow of American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and Fellow of Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy. His research efforts focus on the mechanistic studies for developing and testing novel delivery technologies to deliver biotechnologically derived molecules. He has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers and 300 abstracts

Abstract:

The objective of the present work was to develop a delivery system for controlled release of insulin at basal level based on chitosan-zinc-insulin complex incorporated into poly (lactic acid)-poly (ethylene glycol)-poly (lactic acid) (PLA-PEG-PLA, 4500 Da) thermosensitive polymer. In vitro release profile of insulin from the delivery system was studied in phosphate buffered saline, pH 7.4 (PBS). A significant decrease (p<0.05) in the initial burst was observed from the formulation containing chitosan-zinc-insulin complex compared to zinc-insulin, chitosan-insulin and insulin alone. Additionally, the release of insulin was complete with minimal secondary burst. The polymeric formulations containing chitosan-zinc-insulin complex showed a long-term controlled release (~84 days) of insulin. The in vivo absorption and bioactivity of insulin released from the delivery systems were studied in the streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat model. Chitosan-zinc-insulin complex significantly (P<0.05) reduced the initial burst release of insulin from the polymeric delivery system in comparison to zinc-insulin or insulin alone in vivo in rat. The delivery system released insulin for ~3 months in biologically active form with corresponding reduction in blood glucose levels in diabetic rats. The delivery systems were biocompatible both in vitro and in vivo and were non-immunogenic. The results indicate that the chitosan-zinc-insulin complex incorporated in the thermosensitive polymeric delivery system can be used as an alternative to the conventional daily basal insulin therapy

Biography:

Paulo R. F. Rocha has completed his PhD from University of Algarve, Portugal, in 2014. Since 2014 he has been a post-doctoral researcher at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany.

Abstract:

Detecting minuscule electrical activity of cell populations is a major challenge to electrophysiologists. To overcome such challenge, we built a highly sensitive measuring setup. The setup comprises a biosensor based on a metal/Si/SiO2/interdigitated gold electrode. Interferences were minimized with adequate shielding. To validate the extreme sensitivity of the measuring system, we investigated the electrical activity of large populations of two cell lines known to be electrically quiescent. The cell lines studied were the human cervix carcinoma cell line, HeLa, and C6 glioma cells. HeLa cells are supposed to be electrically quiet as they don’t originate from the brain or any other electrically excitable tissue. However, due to the high sensitivity of our measurement system, even the HeLa cells demonstrate fluctuations of their basal current level, which is much higher in amplitude than the background acquisition noise. The low frequency analysis of the HeLa cells reveals clear current fluctuations of about 3 pA. Measurement of glioma cells subtle electrical activity is typically hampered by the high background noise. Here, we detect glioma electrical behaviour without any physical disruption or interference into their physiology. The current noise analysis, performed with the sensing system determined that the glioma cell activity is primarily caused by the opening of voltage-gated Na+ and K+ ion channels and can be efficiently abolished using specific pharmacological inhibitors. We present here a unique tool to study the electrophysiological properties of large cell populations as an in vitro reference for tumour bulks in vivo.

Biography:

Alonso Sylvie has completed her PhD in University Claude Bernard Lyon I, France and pursued her Postdoctoral studies at the Pasteur Institute of Lille, France and Cornell University, NY, USA. She has established her laboratory at NUS, Department of Microbiology and Immunology. She is also a Member of the Immunology program at the Life Sciences Institute, NUS. Her main interests lie in host-pathogen interactions with a focus on Dengue, Tuberculosis and Enterovirus 71. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of PLOS ONE and Frontiers in Immunotherapies and Vaccines.

Abstract:

Dengue (DEN), the most serious arthropod-borne viral disease, manifests as a mild febrile illness to life-threatening hemorrhage and vascular leakage. The development of an animal model has long been recognized as a major roadblock in understanding dengue pathogenesis and validating therapeutic and prophylactic strategies prior to clinical stages. Humans and mosquitoes are the natural hosts for dengue virus (DENV) in its urban cycle. While most immunocompetent mice are not susceptible to infection from all four DENV serotypes, type I & II interferon deficient mice may develop asymptomatic transient viremia and in few cases, relevant clinical manifestations. Furthermore, it is possible to reproduce the antibody-dependent enhancement of disease severity (ADE) in this mouse model. In this conference, we will present the various mouse models of dengue currently available in our laboratory, ranging from asymptomatic transient viremia to lethal models associated with vascular leakage or liver damage, two relevant clinical manifestations. We will also present our unique models of ADE mediated by maternal antibodies acquired during both gestation and breastfeeding. This mouse models platform has made our group visible to the Dengue research scene, and has attracted a significant number of collaborations, licensing and research service contracts with both industry partners and public institutions for evaluating the in vivo efficacy of prophylactic and therapeutic candidates.

Biography:

Mohd Basyaruddin Abdul Rahman is currently the Professor of Chemistry at Universiti Putra Malaysia. He received his Ph.D in Catalysis Chemistry in 1999 at the University of Southampton, England. He developed skills in catalysis at synchrotron radiation in Daresbury and Grenoble, protein engineering at Osaka University and structural biology at the University of Edinburgh. His research areas include biocatalysis, protein chemistry, nanobiotechnology and computational chemistry. Professor Mohd Basyaruddin Abdul Rahman is among the pioneer chemists in this country to synergise experimental results with theoretical insights. He has published more than 170 cited papers and 300 proceedings in the wide field of biocatalysis. To date, more than 20 patent applications have been filed in Malaysia and 10 internationally. He has supervised and co-supervised more than 30 PhD and 35 MSc postgraduate students. He won Young Scientist recognition from various bodies including ACS, IUPAC and IAP. He is currently the Founding Chairman of the Young Scientists Network and also being elected as the Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

Abstract:

Nanoemulsions emerge as potential drug delivery systems in particular for cancer therapeutics either oral or pulmonary route. Lately, development in vegetable oil based nanoemulsions as a drug carrier system shows high possibility due to efficiency and stability. Palm based nanoemulsion consists of palm oil, surfactant, water and drug having a droplet size of less than 200 nm were developed systematically and optimized. It showed excellence physicochemical properties and also safe to be used in our body. Improvement on the nanodelivery of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) and cancer drugs via palm based nanoemulsion will become very beneficial for the pharmaceutical applications.

Biography:

Gautam Sethi has completed his Postdoctoral training at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and joined Department of Pharmacology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore in 2008 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. The focus of his research over the past few years has been to elucidate the mechanisms of activation of oncogenic transcription factors such as NF-kB/STAT3 by carcinogens and inflammatory agents and the identification of novel inhibitors of these proteins for prevention of and therapy for cancer. From traditional Chinese and Indian medicinal plants, his group has identified numerous small molecules that can suppress various pro-tumorigenic signaling cascades involved in cancer initiation and promotion. The novel findings of his research work have so far resulted in more than one fifty scientific publications in high impact factor peer-reviewed journals and several international awards. He currently serves as an Academic Editor for prestigious PLOS ONE journal and ad-hoc Reviewer for several other international journals.

Abstract:

STATs comprise a family of cytoplasmic transcription factors that transmit signals, mediate intracellular signaling usually generated at cell surface receptors and transmitted to the nucleus. Numerous studies have demonstrated constitutive activation of STAT3 in a wide variety of human tumors, including blood malignancies (leukemias, lymphomas and multiple myeloma) as well as solid tissues (such as head and neck, breast, lung, gastric, hepatocellular and prostate cancers). There is a strong evidence to suggest that aberrant STAT3 signaling promotes development and progression of human cancers by either inhibiting apoptosis or inducing cell proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis. However, the development of novel drugs for the targeting STAT3 that is both safe and efficacious remains an important scientific and clinical challenge. We will present the data that shows that novel small molecule inhibitors of STAT3/JAK2 pathway can suppress the expression of genes involved in cancer initiation and promotion both in vitro and in vivo.

Biography:

Dr. Teoh Teow Chong has completed his PhD Computational Chemistry from University of Malaya. Presently he a senior lecturer in Faculty of Science at Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Malaysia.

Abstract:

In this study, molecular modelling and docking of gp120-CD4 protein complex crystal structure (PDBID: 1g9n) was used to design a novel attachment inhibitor, biphenylalanine, and its derivatives (BPAs) that target HIV-1 gp120 and prevent its binding to CD4 on host cell. Molecular docking results by AutoDock Vina showed that L-biphenylalanine has highest binding probability than D-biphenylalanine and L-methyl-biphenylalanine and exhibited low negative docked energy. The CD4 capture ELISA experiments indicated that L-biphenylalanine has an IC50 at 200µM. BPAs were non-toxic up to 400µM in the Vero cell cytotoxicity test. In addition, BPAs fulfil “the Lipinski rule of five” criteria as good drug candidates.

Biography:

Hoe-Han Goh was graduated from the University of Sheffield, UK. He has started his first academic position at the Institute of Systems Biology, Universiti Kebangsaan (National University) Malaysia in Nov 2011. He has trained himself on the applications of NGS by attending courses and workshops on NGS data analysis held at BGI-Shenzhen and TGAC UK. Since then, he has established a plant functional genomics research group with a focus on crop improvement and molecular exploration of tropical plant species using NGS and functional genomics approaches. In Jun 2014, he was appointed as Head of Plant Biotechnology Centre.

Abstract:

The Nepenthes genus consists of carnivorous plants that have evolved intricate pitcher formation at the tip of their leaves for nutrient acquisition from insect trapping. Previous studies reported several proteins present in the pitcher fluid, including aspartic proteases (nepenthesin I and II) and pathogenesis related proteins (β-1, 3-glucanase, class IV chitinase and thaumatin like protein) which are enzymatically stable albeit exposed to external environment. We are interested in understanding the effect of natural hybridization on the expression of enzymes in the pitcher fluids of Nepenthes. N. ampullaria, N. rafflesiana and their natural hybrid, Nepenthes x hookeriana were chosen as the model due to the distinct feeding habits of N. ampullaria as a detritivore which feeds on leaf litter, while N. rafflesiana and Nepenthes x hookeriana remain carnivorous. To identify novel proteins in the pitcher fluids will require transcript information for the inference of peptide sequences through proteomics informed by transcriptomics (PIT) approach. PacBio isoform sequencing (Iso-Seq) provides unprecedented full length transcriptome profiles of all three species as reference databases for protein identification. Comparative transcriptomic analysis was performed through orthologous clustering of predicted peptide sequences. The hybrid, Nepenthes x hookeriana has the highest number of predicted proteins, whereby more proteins were shared with N. rafflesiana than N. ampullaria. This is consistent with previous genetic study and morphological observation. We are currently investigating allele specific gene expression and whether novel transcripts are generated as a consequence of hybridization

Biography:

Zhao Hong is a MD student of the Department of Radiation and Medical Oncology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University. Her tutor is Prof. Yunfeng Zhou who is the director of Hubei Cancer Clinical Study Center, Hubei key Laboratory of Tumor Biological Behaviors and Hubei Radiotherapy quality control center. She has completed her Master’s degree from the same department of the same University, she has published 1 paper as co-author in reputed journal. Her major fields of interest are metabolomics and radiosensitivity of cancer.

Abstract:

To study the radiation response of the cancer cells to different fractional dose irradiation and explore the ideal fractional dose. Methods: Observe the variability of cell cycle, cell proliferation, apoptosis, DNA damage and repair and the expression of related proteins of human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-435 which was administrated by different dose of X-ray irradiation (0Gy, 2Gy, 4Gy, 6Gy, 8Gy, 10Gy, 12.5Gy, 15Gy, 20Gy). Flow cytometry was used to observe the rate of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, CCK8 method and colony formation assay were used to examine cell proliferation, the expression of DNA damage and repair and other related proteins were detected with western blotting.

Biography:

Shilpa Verekar has completed her PhD from Jiwaji University, India. She is an Industrial Microbiologist with 14 years of experience as Senior Research Scientist at Research Centre of Piramal Enterprises Limited. She was actively engaged in the discovery of novel bioactive molecules like PM181110 particularly from fungi in the areas of anti-cancer and anti-infective diseases. She was actively involved in establishing the microbial culture collection (>50,000) and microbial extract library (>90, 000) with Piramal Enterprises Limited. She has 27 publications in reputed journals, 5 book chapters and 1 patent to her credit. She was awarded the “Woman Scientist Award at International Conference on "Mycology and Plant Pathology Biotechnological Approaches" at Banaras Hindu University in 2012. Currently she is working as an Assistant Professor in Department of Microbiology at St. Xavier’s Autonomous College, Mumbai.

Abstract:

Endophytic fungi are defined as fungi that live asymptomatically within the tissue of higher plants. These fungi can produce a plethora of secondary metabolites and came in limelight after the discovery of Taxol followed by compounds like Camptothecin, Vincristine and Cryptocandin. The potential of endophytic fungi is well established but its translation into commercial level production is yet to be explored. The focus of our research activity is on the discovery of bioactive metabolites from endophytic fungi from Indian subcontinent which offers a great opportunity to discover unexplored fungi with pharmaceutical potential. India is blessed with two hotspots of biodiversity, out of the total twelve mega biodiversity centers in the world. Moreover, out of 17500 flowering plants available in India, over one-third of these are endemic. These plants enjoy diverse habitats in different geographical regions and climatic zones ranging from tropical to alpine regions (Himalayas) and from coastal regions to the deserts. Some of them withstand the extreme climatic conditions viz. the deserts, cold deserts, hot springs, craters etc. During the course of our study related to drug discovery using various cell based, target based and enzyme based screening to get anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial compounds; we have screened more than 6000 endophytic fungi isolated from plants of diverse habitats with medicinal properties to get bioactive molecules. The most prolific producer of biologically active compounds were the species of Mycoleptodiscus, Phoma, Phomopsis, Xylaria, Chaetomium, Alternaria, Nigrospora, Curvularia, Fusarium, Arthrinium and sterile forms which yielded compounds like PM181110, Heptelidic acid, Altersolanol A, Ophiobolin, Nectripyrone, Ergoflavin, A52688 antibiotic complex, Arthrichitin and Herbarin. An overview of such compounds and some aspects of fast track lead generation will be covered in this presentation.

Biography:

Dr. Rajesh Patel has completed his PhD at the age of 33 years from Ganpat University, Gujara, India. He is the Senior Assistant Professor in Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, S.K.Patel College of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Ganpat University, a premier Pharmacy organization. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of repute.

Abstract:

Apoptosis is programmed cell death which occur in multicellular organisms and is characterized by a series of events lead to a variety of morphological and biochemical changes, including membrane blebbing, cell shrinkage, alteration of membrane asymmetry and permeability, condensation of chromatin and nucleus, DNA fragmentation, and formation of membrane bound vesicles (apoptotic bodies). Apoptosis and cell mediated cytotoxicity are characterized by cleavage of the genomic DNA into discrete fragments prior to membrane disintegration. Because DNA cleavage is a hallmark for apoptosis, assays which measure DNA fragmentation are used for the determination of apoptotic cell death. The DNA fragmentation analysis was carried out to determine apoptosis inhibition by test extract if extract might have toxicity followed by cleavage of nuclear DNA. The DNA fragmentation was performed with IC50 dose of the methanolic extract of Aristolochia indica against K562 cancer cells and vero normal cells. From the results, it found that the extract was exhibited significant DNA fragmentation pattern, which confirmed induction of apoptosis rather than necrosis. The 100 bp ladder was used as standard marker. Methanolic extract having concentration of 1000 µg/ml showed the significant DNA fragmentation pattern in K562 cells. While fragmentation pattern was not significant (no clear single band) in vero cells. So it revealed that methanolic extract exhibited indusive effect of apoptosis leads to cell death.

Biography:

Dr. Yiu Fai (Chris) Tsang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Science and Environmental Studies (SES) at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). He received his PhD from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). He further worked as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to joining HKIEd, he was a Programme Coordinator of BSc (Hons) in Applied Science (Energy and Environment) at Vocational Training Council and a Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at PolyU. He is currently an Associate Editor for RSC Advances (Royal Society of Chemistry) and serves as Advisory Committee Member/Honorary Advisor in several non-governmental organizations and green groups. He has been also appointed as Adjunct Professor in Guizhou Academy of Sciences, China.

Abstract:

Traditional water treatment processes cannot provide an effective removal of geosmin and MIB (Bruce et al., 2002). The application of activated carbon is one of the most commonly used treatment processes, however, the presence of natural organic materials can result in competition for adsorption sites, leading to decreases in geosmin and MIB removal (Ho et al., 2002). Larger dose of activated carbon is required for effective removal. A cost effective and practical method for the treatment of MIB and geosmin is therefore required. One of the effective processes is ozone-enhanced biofiltration (Bridget et al., 2009). Locating biofilters downstream of ozonation improves dissolved organic carbon removal and can aid in producing biologically stable water such that the potential for biofilm regrowth in water distribution systems is minimised. Field operational data suggests that ozone can oxide 10% to more than 90% of the Geosmin and MIB, and typical biofiltration can reach 50% removal only (Metz et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2007). Several factors may significantly influence geosmin and MIB removal in biofilters, including such as seasonal water temperature variations, filter media (GAC, EC, or sand), empty bed contact time (Liu et al., 2001). Some investigations demonstrated that temperature and media are the most important factors affecting drinking water biofiltration processes (Urfer, 1998) and may influence the removal of compounds such as geosmin and MIB. In this study, the major factors affecting the biological degradation of geosmin and MIB removal in biofilters, including (i) initial concentration, (ii) empty bed contact time, (iii) ozone dosage, and (iv) media, were examined.

Biography:

Mohamed Said Mahmoud has completed his PhD and gained experience from several projects in field of water and wastewater analysis and water quality assessment. He has Membership of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the International Association of Engineers, the New York Academy of Sciences, International Society for Environmental Information Sciences, Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Africa and Editorial Review Board Member at the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. His research interests cover treatment of water and wastewater using different eco-friendly and law cost environmental materials including biological, chemical, physical and mathematical modeling

Abstract:

For color removal from wastewater containing organic contaminants, biological treatment systems have been widely used such as physical and chemical methods of flocculation, coagulation. Fungal decolorization of dye containing wastewater is one of important goal in industrial wastewater treatment. This work was aimed to characterize Aspergillus niger strain for dye removal from aqueous solution and from raw textile wastewater. Batch experiments were studied for removal of color using fungal isolate biomass under different conditions. Environmental conditions like pH, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial dye concentration were studied. Influence of the pH on the removal of azo dye by Aspergillus niger was carried out between pH 1.0 and pH 11.0. The optimum pH for red dye decolonization was 9.0. Results showed the decolorization of dye was decreased with the increase of its initial dye concentration. The adsorption data was analyzed based on the models of equilibrium isotherm (Freundlich model and Langmuir model). During the adsorption isotherm studies; dye removal was better fitted to Freundlich model. The isolated fungal biomass was characterized according to its surface area both pre and post the decolorization process by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis. Results indicate that the isolated fungal biomass showed higher affinity for dye in decolorization process.

Biography:

Philippe Ellul holds a PhD in Plant Biotechnology from the University Polytechnic of Valencia, Spain. As a Researcher, he was involved in EU and Spanish national and regional projects (1997-2005) focused on vegetables’ improvement for developing crops with increased salt and drought tolerance, resistance to biotic stresses, modified architecture, parthenocarpic or long shelf life fruits. As an Assistant Professor, he taught genetics, plant biotech & breeding and supervised master’s degree and PhD theses for agricultural engineers in Spain, Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador. He has worked for the private sector (2005-13) managing international R&D collaborations and designing innovative approaches combining genomics, molecular and cellular biology to support breeding programs. He has joined CGIAR in 2013 and is actively involved in the monitoring of the programs and the design of the second portfolio (2017-22). He has published international papers and patents

Abstract:

CGIAR’s mission is to design and apply innovative science to convert the 21st century’s grand challenges into prosperous and more equitable opportunities for people of the developing world. Food and nutrition security, biodiversity, climate change, natural resources management are globally identified (G20) as strategic priorities for both developed and developing countries. With its 15 research Centers (IRRI, CIMMYT, CIAT, CIP, etc...) collaborating in 12 CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and 3 platforms (Genebank, Big Data & Genetic Gain), CGIAR is involved in a reform process initiated in 2008 and entering in phase 2 for 2017-22 (Strategic Research Framework, 2015). Eight of the new CRPs are Agri-Food System programs involved in the improvement of staple crops (maize, wheat, rice, potato, Sorghum, etc...), livestock and fish. Most of these programs are collaborating in South Asian integration countries for increased impact. These programs are engaged in genomic analysis as maize and wheat with the seed of discovery project, RICE collaborating with CAAS and BGI for re-sequencing 3,000 lines of rice (and very soon 10,000) or RTB (Root Tubers and Banana) re-sequencing 1,200 cassava accessions. Accurate prediction of phenotype from genotype through genomics-assisted breeding is now feasible in crops or livestock. Millions of genotyping data are produced in high throughput genotyping platforms and used by pre-breeders in parallel with the breeding information phenotyping and field trials necessarily compiled in a modern and standardized breeding management system. Innovative computational methods are being designed and shared to support the management, collation, curation, visualization and analysis of multivariate, complex data sets to improve the identification of causative connections between genotype and phenotype and between phenotype and landscape. For rice agro-ecosystems, emerging concepts and technologies will form a key flagship (FP5) of the new RICE AFS full proposal aiming to accelerate genetic gain by capitalizing on breeding material, knowledge, and tools developed from in a first phase (GRiSP 2011-16). Novel biotech approaches including genome editing and blue-sky research such as systems biology and C4 rice project for developing a rice plant switched to C4 photosynthetic engine and adapted anatomical attributes, will be implemented. Analytical pipelines are being developed through Centers and CRP partnerships such as the Genetic Gains platform and the Genomic and Open-source Breeding Informatics Initiative (GOBII) to accelerate genetic gain. An emerging related-issue is the human capacity to design and implement such innovative approaches. Pre-breeders skilled in quantitative genetics, mapping analysis, genomics, biotechnology or breeding populations design are being trained and incorporated into the new AFS programs. We will describe how CGIAR breeding programs are evolving to deliver multiple benefits based on diverse biotech innovations.

Biography:

Petr Maly is the Head of Laboratory of Ligand Engineering at the Institute of Biotechnology, Czech Academy of Sciences in Vestec near Prague, Czech Republic. He has studied at the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague and completed his Doctorate at the Institute of Molecular Genetics, ASCR in Prague. He has completed his Postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Pathology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The University of Michigan Medical School, USA, in the laboratory of Professor John B. Lowe where he has published several substantial papers related to in vivo role of mammalian glycosyltransferases. Since 1998 to 2005 he was a Research Group Leader at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Prague. He has also worked as Visiting Scientist at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Oklahoma Center for Medical Glycobiology, College of Medicine, the University of Oklahoma, USA. He was a Participating Investigator of Consortium for Functional Glycomics, USA (2001-2008) and Member of Editorial Board (2001-2005) and Editor (since 2003) of the Czech Journal “Biologicke listy”. Since 2008, he has been working on development of combinatorial protein libraries derived from small protein scaffolds and construction of novel high-affinity protein binders with therapeutic and diagnostic potential.

Abstract:

IL-23 receptor-mediated signaling has recently been closely associated with development of several chronic autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. Recently we generated novel IL-23 receptor antagonists (called REX ligands) derived from scaffold of albumin-binding domain (ABD) that exhibited immunosuppressive control over IL-23-driven ex vivo expansion of primary human Th-17+ T-cells. Due to small size, excellent tissue penetration and self-refolding activity, these binders represent a valuable non-immunoglobulin alternative for development of topically-administrated anti-psoriatic biologicals. As the structure of IL-23/IL-23R complex is unavailable and a precise mode of interaction remains unknown, designing more efficient IL-23 inhibitors is cumbersome. Following our concept, we generated a novel class of binding proteins targeting p19 subunit of human IL-23 cytokine. These unique proteins, called ILP binders, were selected from high-complex ABD-derived combinatorial library in combination with ribosome display. From 214 clones analyzed by ELISA, Western blot and DNA sequencing, 53 provided 35 different sequence variants that were further characterized. Using in silico docking in combination with cell-surface competition binding assay we identified a group of inhibitory candidates that substantially diminished binding of recombinant p19 to the IL-23 receptor on human monocytic THP-1 cells. Several found p19-blocking variants inhibited IL-23-driven expansion of IL-17-producing primary human CD4+ T-cells. Thus, these novel binders represent unique IL-23-targeted probes useful for IL-23/IL-23R epitope mapping studies and could be used for designing novel p19/IL-23-targeted anti-inflammatory

Biography:

Kampon Sriwatanakul is an internationally recognized pioneer of stem cell therapy, received MD degree and PhD degree from Mahidol University where he had an academic career for more than 35 years. He has also received training in Clinical Pharmacology from University of Leicester, UK and University of Rochester, USA. Apart from publishing more than 40 publications in international journals, he has spearheaded a number of important research and development activities related to stem cell technology in Thailand, including setting up of cord blood and tooth cell banking.

Abstract:

Stem cell therapy is an emerging form of healthcare that offers significant potential to improve the practice of medicine. Despite the large number of cell therapy are in clinical trials, relatively few have made it to the market in the United States. In Asia, Korea seems to develop cell therapy products more rapidly than other countries. In Asian countries, we attempt to promote the applications of stem cell therapy in regenerative medicine. The PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) kit is currently in the process of seeking FDA approval as a Class II medical device. Clinical trials were conducted to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of this innovative kit in the treatments of facial rejuvenation and mild to moderate cases of knee joint osteoarthritis (OA). The results demonstrated the consistent effects in stimulating cell proliferation and tissue regeneration. There were statistically significant differences regarding the general appearance, facial skin firmness, sagging and wrinkle states before each PRP procedure and 3 months after the last PRP procedure. The intra-articular injection of hyaluronic acid (HA) plus PRP could strongly rescue the meniscus tear and cartilage breakdown. The combination of HA and PRP can synergistically promote cartilage regeneration and inhibit OA inflammation. These studies might offer advanced treatments for facial rejuvenation and alternative OA treatments based on regenerative mechanisms.

Biography:

Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir is the Director of Advanced Biotechnology and Breeding Centre at the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB). He has completed his PhD on Plant Genetic Engineering at the Universiti Putra Malaysia under Asian Development Bank’s Scholarship. He was also appointed by the Honorable Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of Malaysia to Chair the Genetic Modification Advisory Committee (GMAC) under the National Biosafety Board from 25th May 2010 to 24th May 2016

Abstract:

Oil palm is the most productive vegetable oil crop that can be used either as edible foodstuff or industrial feedstock. Systematic progress in conventional breeding, application of good agriculture practices among others has allowed the oil palm industry to obtain a solid footing in South East Asia, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia. However, to remain competitive in the long term, diversification of research into profitable areas, such as palm biotechnology is a necessity. Biotechnology offers tremendous opportunities for further improvement of oil palm yields. The idea is to deploy appropriate biotechnology tools to obtain highest yielding trees, with good quality oil and minimal environmental footprint. In this regard, MPOB made a major breakthrough in sequencing the genome of oil palm, which allowed the identification of genes influencing important agronomic traits. Conversion of these discoveries into molecular diagnostic assays will also help improve breeding efficiency. Apart from conventional breeding, MPOB also has an active tissue culture program to clone the highest yielding palms. Uniformity of planting materials via cloning, offers the opportunity to increase yields up to 30%. However, abnormalities observed in a small percentage of the clones, has restricted large scale commercialization. Nonetheless, it has opened up opportunities for deciphering the epigenome of oil palm to understand molecular basis of clonal abnormality. Developing transgenic technologies has also been an important component in MPOB’s R&D efforts to further diversify the use of palm oil. The main focus has been to develop high oleate oil palm for the high value oleochemical industry. Biotechnology efforts towards increasing oil palm production will contribute to world food security.

Biography:

Lei Yang has completed his PhD/MD in 2014 from Wuhan University, China. He has worked in the Department of Radiation oncology & Medical Oncology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University for 1 year. His main research field is the role of telomere and telomerase in anti-cancer therapy.

Abstract:

Radiotherapy is one of the major therapeutic strategies in can¬cer treatment and identifying new factors that predict radioresistance could be of great value in the treatment of cancers. Telomere homeostasis is now emerging as an effective and important factor in modulating cellular sensitivity to ionizing radiation. The telomere-binding protein TPP1, an important component of the shelterin complex at mammalian telomeres, is an important regulator of telomere homeostasis. In this study, we investigated the role of TPP1 expression in regulating cellular radiosensitivity and telomere homeostasis in both telomerase positive (HCT116) and alternative lengthening of telomere (ALT) cell lines (U2OS). We found that TPP1 deletion lead to a significant increase of radiosensitivity to X-rays in both telomerase positive (HCT116) and alternative lengthening of telomere (ALT) cell lines (U2OS). TPP1 mediated radiosensitization was correlated with increased telomere dysfunction and apoptosis rate after IR exposure. Moreover, TPP1 deletion slowed down the repair kinetics of total DNA damage and telomere dysfunction induced by ionizing radiation. Together, our study demonstrated that TPP1 plays a vital role in telomere maintenance and cellular response to ionizing radiation and may be a potential target in the radiotherapy of cancer regardless of telomerase status.

Biography:

Mohammad Nazrul Islam has completed his MBBS degree from Dhaka University and later MSc (BME) from Gonobiswabidyalaya, Bangladesh. He is the founding Head of Biomedical and Medical Biotechnology Department of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital, Bangladesh. He has published papers in reputed professional, national and international forum, journals and continues academic research work at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College, Institute and Hospital since 2007

Abstract:

Tissue healing is a complex process that involves both local and systemic responses and the healing process of bone is much slower than that of soft tissues which is a great challenge of medical science. The use of Laser Therapy (LLLT) for wound/bone healing has been shown to be effective by modulating both local and systemic response by enhancing cellular & mitochondrial ion exchange, bone mineralization, nitric oxide formation, lymphatic circulation, osteoblast proliferation, effects on osteoblast gene expression, osteoclast inhibition (prevents bone mineral resorption) and by bone engraftment on synthetic materials. The result observed here is that the bone density in the laser treated group, at fracture site, at the end of 3rd week is equivalent to the bone density of control group at the end of 4th week of incidence. Treatment with 830 nm diode laser has substantially reduced the fracture healing time as well as improved the quality/quantity of callus formation of the patient; thus accelerates bone regeneration and enhance fracture healing. Laser biostimulative effects on bone could be a new dimension for bone regeneration which significantly reduce healing period, lessen cost of treatment and enhance patient compliance.

Biography:

Zhao Hong is a MD student of the Department of Radiation and Medical Oncology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University. Her tutor is Prof. Yunfeng Zhou who is the director of Hubei Cancer Clinical Study Center, Hubei key Laboratory of Tumor Biological Behaviors and Hubei Radiotherapy quality control center. She has completed her Master’s degree from the same department of the same University, she has published 1 paper as co-author in reputed journal. Her major fields of interest are metabolomics and radiosensitivity of cancer

Abstract:

To establish a radioresistant cell line of cancer cells and investigate the proteins related to glucose metabolism, find out the differences between them. Methods: established radioresistant cell line (435R) of breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-435 through exposed to continuous X-ray radiation(2Gy a day for five days a week and a total dose of 60Gy), the radiation resistance of cells was detected by colony formation assay. Enzymes that related to the glucose metabolism of the cells were detected at the level of transcription and translation levels. The changes of the metabolite concentrations were detected with the special kits.

Biography:

Han Wu is currently pursuing her PhD from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China. She has completed her MD in Oncology from the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China. She has performed studied on primary hepatocyte isolation and culture, establishment of liver disease model such as DEN-induced hepatocellular carcinogenesis in mouse and rat, DMN-induced acute hepatic failure in rat and tumor metabolism. She has successfully applied for the National Natural Science Foundation of China grant (NO: 31371440) as the principle person. And now her main research field is the drug resistant in abdominal tumors. She has published two papers as co-author in reputed journals.

Abstract:

Gastric cancer (GC) remains one of the most common malignancies, especially in East Asia. Although surgical resection is the main method in curing cancer, chemotherapy remains an important treatment to avoid tumor recurrence and metastasis. Doxorubicin (DOX) is one of the most effective and widely used chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of various malignancies. And it is also widely used to treat GC in combination regimens with etoposide, cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil. However, the dose-dependent adverse effects significantly limit its efficacy. Previous researches demonstrated that dysregulation of apoptosis pathway is a fundamental, common aberration adapted by of most cancer cells to survive, proliferate and metastasis. Hence, we have recently proposed a novel synthetic derivative VCPA as a chemosensitive agent, which could enhance the efficacy of DOX and thereby reducing the DOX doses. GC cell lines SGC7901, AGS, MKN28 and MGC803 were used to investigate the cytotoxicity under VCPA treated. The IC50 doses for 48 hours were 19.96 uM, 10.67 uM, 11.30 uM and 14.01 uM, respectively. The inhibition of VCPA was displayed in a dose and time dependent manner. Pretreatment of GC cells with VCPA at IC50 for 24 hours significantly enhanced the inhibition of DOX both in vitro and in vivo. Even the DOX-resistant GC cells displayed apoptosis after pretreatment. This drug combination strategy caused rapid production of ROS in GC cells. And the response of GC cells to the drug correlated with induction of pro-apoptotic protein Bax, inhibition of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2, activation of caspase-3 and finally promoting PARP cleavage. Collectively, these results imply that VCPA, a novel synthetic derivative based on α-tocopheryl succinate, potentiates DOX induced apoptosis in GC cells and is in sight to reduce patient adverse response to DOX. One of the potential mechanisms by which the pretreated combination therapy has synergistic cytotoxic effects against gastric cancer may be through the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway.

Biography:

Xiaojia Gao completed his Bachelor's degree from Hubei University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2013. He is currently completing his Master's degree in radiation-guided gene therapy of cancer at Wuhan University, China. He took part in the group of Prof. Yunfeng Zhou who has been the head of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University. He has published 2 papers in national journals and presented results of his research at a national conference

Abstract:

Radiotherapy is widely used in adjuvant approaches for esophageal cancer (EsC) to reduce local recurrence and improve survival. However, the overall 5-year survival was about 17% over the past few decades. Therefore, find an effective way to improve the effect of radiotherapy is vital. We have been engaged in this work for 15 years. Not only radiosensitivity is associated with a collection of associated proteins and telomere, we found, but also telomerase. Telomerase is, furthermore, regulated by post-translational modifications of the ratelimiting catalytic subunit hTERT. We had used yeast two-hybrid method to identify UBE2D3 encoding an E2 ligase which is a principle hTERT-interacting protein, and inhibition of UBE2D3 expression attenuates radiosensitivity of MCF-7 human breast cancer cells by increasing hTERT expression and activity, and we found that UBE2D3 is negatively correlated with hTERT expression and is a positive prognostic factor in EsC. To verify a possible contribution of UBE2D3 to tumor cell radiosensitivity, esophageal squamous carcinoma cells (EC109 cells) were transfected with the expression plasmid encoding UBE2D3, and stable transfectants were subsequently established. UBE2D3-overexpressing cells exhibited an increased incorporation of radiosensitivity, to further investigate the mechanism, the CCK-8 assay was used to confirm cell proliferation, which showed that UBE2D3 downgrades EC109 cells propagation. Moreover, cell cycle distribution was examed by flow cytometry, UBE2D3 overexpression in EC109 cells causes prolonged G1 arrest after IR exposure, on the contrary , G2/M shortened. We, then, detected the protein expression about ATM/ATR-Chk2 pathway by western blotting, which in UBE2D3-overexpressing cells showed decrease after irradiation. And overexpression of UBE2D3 decreases the protein level of hTERT relative to the control cell line. Subsequently, we immunoprecipitated with anti-hTERT antibody followed by immunoblotting with anti-ubquitin antibody to examine the in vivo role of UBE2D3 in ubiquitination of hTERT. Overexpression of UBE2D3 caused a clear and dramatic increase in the amount of ubiquitinated hTERT species after 2h of specific proteasome inhibitor MG132 treatment, which points out hTERT may be degraded by the proteasome pathway. To determine whether this change can influence the telomere length, we used real-time PCR to test the relative telomere length, and result suggests that overexpressed UBE2D3 is negative correlation with telomere extension. In conclusion, these findings suggest that UBE2D3 may be a potential target in the radiotherapy of EsC.

Biography:

Yen-Nien Liu has completed his PhD from Tzu Chi University, Taiwan and Postdoctoral studies from National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, USA. He is an Assistant Professor of Taipei Medical University, Taiwan. He has published more than 19 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of repute.

Abstract:

Loss of heterozygosity of ETV6, an ETS-family transcription factor in cancer suggests it acts as a tumor suppressor. However, its cellular functions and regulating signaling remain unclear. In this study, we demonstrate that ETV6 represses prostate cancer metastasis. We identified miR-96, a potential oncomiR, as a novel target of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling in prostate cancer cells. We further identified ETV6 as a downstream target of miR-96 and found that EGFR-mediated activation of miR-96 leads to decreased expression of ETV6. Activated-EGFR signaling mediated increases in miR-96 expression directly inhibited ETV6 expression. ETV6 knockdown promotes prostate cancer cells migration and invasion. Moreover, ectopic ETV6 expression was found associated with reduced metastasis of prostate cancer cells to both bone and brain and increased overall survival in a xenograft model. Importantly, we found EGFR serves as a transcriptioanl activator for miR-96 expression through nuclear EGFR binds to the primary miR-96 regulatory region. This mechanism is supported by results in clinical samples: Low ETV6 levels are correlated with high miR-96 and nuclear EGFR levels in tissue from prostate cancer patients. These studies suggest that prostatic metastasis involves EGFR-mediated miR-96 induction and ETV6 inactivation, resulting in metastatic phenotypes.

Biography:

Muhamad Afiq Faisal Yahaya has completed his MSc in Medical Virology in 2014 from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. He has then appointed as Biotechnology Lecturer in the Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His interest in Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical and Natural products has led him to conduct a number of amazing studies.

Abstract:

Genetic modification (GM) technology allows scientists to alter the genetic information of a particular organism. The technology allows the production of genetically modified organism (GMO) that has the enhanced property compared to the unmodified organism. The application of GM technology is not only in biopharmaceutical field, it is now has been applied extensively in agriculture such as corn, rice and tomato. In Malaysia, Biosafety Act 2007 has been enacted in which all GMO based products must be labeled with adequate information before being marketed. This paper aims to determine the awareness level amongst Malaysian consumers on the GMO products available in the market and the efficiency of information supplied in the GMO product labeling. The result of the survey will serve as a guideline for Malaysia Government agency bodies to provide comprehensive yet efficient information to consumers for the purpose of GMO product labeling in the near future. In conclusion, the efficiency of information delivery plays a vital role in ensuring that the information is being conveyed clearly to Malaysian consumers during the selection process of GMO products available in the market.

Biography:

Wei Du has completed her PhD and postdoctoral studies from South China University of Technology and Tsinghua University respectively. She worked as a visiting professor at MIT from 2009 to 2010. She has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of Journal of Engineering. Based on the announcement of Elsevier in 2014, she is listed as one of Most Cited Chinese Researchers. She has applied for about 30 invention patents of China, in which 20 have been authorized in China and 3 international patent applications (PCT) have been authorized in many countries

Abstract:

Biodiesel, as a renewable and environmental friendly clean fuel, derived from renewable oils/fats, has attracted considerable attention during the past decade. Although alkaline/acid based chemical process has realized the industrialization of biodiesel production in many countries, the reaction has many issues: It is energy intensive, recovery of glycerol is difficult, the acidic or alkaline catalyst has to be removed from the product and generates large quantity of waste water and with alkali as the catalyst, rather high requirements on the oil feedstock's quality and edible oil feed stocks such as soybean oil, rapeseed oil etc., are used as the feedstock, leading to serious concern on the food security. It is no doubt that for the sustainable development of biodiesel industry, the oil feedstock should be non edible oil sources. But currently, the widely used alkali based process is not suitable for the conversion of non edible oils since such oils usually contain free fatty acid and water. High requirements on the quality of oil feedstock has become the major challenge for the sustainable development of biodiesel industry, resulting in many small/medium sized biodiesel companies are closing down worldwide, such as in the United State, many European countries, Brazil, China etc (in China, almost all alkaline/acid based process close down now). Enzymatic approaches with lipase as the catalyst for biodiesel production can be effectively applied to the conversion of non edible oil feed stocks and it has many well recognized advantages over chemical methods: Moderate reaction conditions, lower energy input, easier product recovery and environmental friendly. The most important advantage is that enzymatic process can be applied to poor quality oil feedstock's conversion with varied content of free fatty acid and water and it is significant for the development of the second/third generation biodiesel. Although it is well recognized that enzymatic process has tremendous advantages versus alkalin/acid based catalytic process as illustrated above, the low stability (poor operational life) and the high cost of the lipase have been the main hurdle to the industrialization of lipase catalyzed biodiesel production. Tsinghua University has been engaged in enzymatic process for biodiesel production for more than 10 years and great breakthrough technologies/equipments are achieved successfully. With Tsinghua's technology, the lipase's operational life can be improved over 100-fold compared with traditional enzymatic approaches, leading to significant reduction in lipase cost. This technology can be applied to poor quality oil feed stocks, such as waste cooking oil, crude palm oil, algae oil etc., showing great potential for the second/third generation of biodiesel. And the whole production process is environmentally friendly and almost zero emission with no any acid/alkali used in the process. The technology has been commercialized successfully with 50,000 ton/year capacity in Hunan, China and it is the first commercialized facility worldwide by using enzymatic process for biodiesel production. Based on its environmental benefit and economic benefit, a bigger one (200,000 ton/year) is under construction in Guangdong. This process has also been demonstrated successfully in Brazil.

Biography:

Hui Song has completed her PhD from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium and Postdoctoral studies from Drexel University, University of Notre Dame, Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, USA. Presently she is a Professor (Principal Investigator) in Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her study mainly focuses on industrial enzyme discovery and application. Her research profits have been published in PLoS ONE; Proteins etc and she has gained eleven patents.

Abstract:

Carbohydrate binding modules (CBM) are functional domains most commonly found in carbohydrate active enzymes. The kind of domains can specifically bind to the carbohydrates and play important role in hydrolysis activity and structure stabilization of the parent enzymes. We identified a novel CBM (CBM68 by CAZy database) from a newly discovered Anoxybacillus sp. pullulanase. The truncation of CBM68 resulted in the reduction of enzymatic activity and thermo-stability. In this study we reveal the recognition mechanism of CBM68 with the glycan substrates using site directed mutagenesis in combination with the X-ray crystal structure data. In addition, we also demonstrate further the effects of CBM68 on the catalysis properties and thermo-stability by designed a series of recombinant fusion pullulanases and measured properties through replacing or superposing the N-terminal domain of PulA (CBM68) and an acidic pullulanase (CBM41), respectively. All of the recombinant fusion pullulanases showed varying degrees of changes on the catalytic properties. Among them, two recombinant fusion pullulanases with the optimal pH at 3.5 showed more suitable for starch industry than their wild type. Meanwhile, the results will provide molecular basis for ration design in order to obtain novel pullulanase with enhanced catalytic efficiency.

Biography:

Ms. Ramos graduated Magna cum laude with the degree Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology major in Industrial Biotechnology at the Visayas State University, Visca, Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines last May 2014. She is presently working as Science Research Assistant at the Philippine Rootcrop Research and Training Center, a national research institute based at the university wherein she is working on a national project which aims to develop a a diagnostic kit for identification of true-to-type variety of Philippine Carabao Mango, wherein the patent of the said developed technology is pending. Ms. Ramos has attended several seminars and symposia at the local, regional and national level; the latest was when she served as a paper presenter

Abstract:

The effect of vegetable oils as supplementary carbon source during the production of lovastatin by Aspergillus niger in submerged culture was investigated. This study was conducted to know what incubation period (5, 7, 9, or 12 days) yields the maximum lovastatin concentration and to compare which vegetable oil (coconut, corn or soybean) and what concentration (0.5 or 2%, v/v) give the highest yield of lovastatin. Lovastatin concentrations were determined by UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Results showed that maximum lovastatin yield was achieved on the 7th day of incubation with 3127.94 μg mL-1. Among the three oils, corn oil significantly improved lovastatin production. Lovastatin production in coconut oil, corn oil, and soybean oil were differed significantly during the 5th and 7th day incubation. Extending the incubation period resulted in no significant differences among the oils tested. Oil concentration of 0.5% (v/v) resulted in higher yield of lovastatin. There was a significant difference between 0.5 and 2% (v/v), on the 7th and 12th day incubation. Increasing oil concentration to 2% (v/v) gave lower yields of lovastatin. Thus, corn oil appears to be a good adjuvant for improving lovastatin productivity.

Biography:

Aneet Kaur has completed her PhD in Biotechnology from Punjabi University. She has more than 10 years of Postgraduate research and teaching experience in Microbiology and Biotechnology. Presently she is working as an Assistant Professor at Asian Educational Institute. She is heading the Department of Biosciences; a Punjabi University affiliated Postgraduate Degree College. She has published 8 papers in reputed journals and has been life Member of Association of Microbiologists of India and Biotech Research Society of India and is also serving as an Editorial Board Member of Journal of Textiles and Light Industrial Science and Technology (TLIST).

Abstract:

Increasing concern about the environment, food and feed shortages and hike in the price of petroleum have stimulated interest in new ways of producing more bioenergy. The interest is rapidly increasing towards converting agricultural and industrial wastes to commercially valuable products. Waste disposal and pollution are inextricably linked. The majority of waste disposal situations involve pollution of various kinds. Thus the solid wastes and its disposal is one of the serious problems in developing countries which require eco-friendly treatment options. The Bioethanol made from waste biomass can offer immediate and sustained greenhouse gas advantages and also solve the problem of its disposal. Citrus processing waste, a byproduct of juice manufactures which contains high amount of flavonoids and polysaccharides. There is a considerable industrial interest in the enzymatic transformation of flavonoids to hydrolysis products; that offers a pathway to bio-energy generation. Rhamnosidase of bacterial origin are very few and thus are potentially subject for research. Important sugars from the processed citrus peel waste were recovered by enzymatic hydrolysis and dilute acid treatment of the waste substrate further utilized for bioethanol production. Sacchromyces cerevisae was immobilized and used for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. Bioethanol production was optimized and estimated by HPLC. Pectin was recovered as byproducts after the process. This method is an effort to develop an enzymatic treatment which would facilitate the economical processing of citrus waste for bioenergy generation. The process also holds the potential to reduce the environment threats by replacing the non renewable fuel and waste disposal issues.

Biography:

Dr Sadaf Fatima completed her PhD from Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Unit, Aligarh Muslim University, India, on Protein Folding and Stability. She is now working as Assistant Professor in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. She has published 15 research articles and completed 2 research projects successfully. She has recently started working on Ayurvedic Biotechnology, dealing with biotechnological applications of different Ayurvedic drugs. Ayurveda (which means "life-knowledge") is a traditional Indian system of medicine that focuses on holistic approach for diagnosis and therapy of diseases.

Abstract:

A large number of studies have proven the efficacy of ayurvedic herbs in the field of health and wellness. The aim of this study was to access the in-vitro biological potential of Indian ayurvedic formulation, Panchakola which is the equi-proportional mixture of five herbs. The aqueous extract of powdered panchakola was characterized for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity. Further, the aqueous extract was analyzed for its antibacterial property against eight bacterial strains including two strains of Escherichia coli, one each of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aeromonas species and Klebsiella oxytoca. Further, the aqueous extract of panchakola was tested against Candida cells to reveal its role in antifungal activity. The results revealed that http://www.biotechnologycongress.com/asia-pacific/ showed 50% DPPH scavenging at 123 μl of extract as compared to the Ascorbic acid's value at 25μl which is known to be a strong antioxidant agent. Also, the highest FRAP value was observed at 500 μl and the lowest was at 50μl i.e. 0.989 mM and 0.419 mM as compared to Ascorbic acid i.e. 1.03 mM and 0.201 mM respectively. The panchakola extract showed no anti-inflammatory activity in both the assays upto a maximum amount of 1000 μl. It was found that panchakola had strongest inhibitory activity against E. coli (76.49%), minimal inhibition against P. aeruginosa (28.43%) and no inhibition against B. subtilis. Hence, results suggested that it can be used to treat oxidative stressed disorders and also can replace the antibiotics.

Biography:

Mohd Iqbal Mir has completed his PhD in Biotechnology (Specialization in Fish Molecular Biology) in the year 2014. He has four and half year research experience pre and post PhD in the field of Animal Science. Presently he is working as a Senior Research Fellow in National Fisheries Development Board on National Surveillance Program on Aquatic Animal Diseases.

Abstract:

Thermal tolerance determines the habitat selection, spatial distribution and migration of wild fish and affects the survival, growth, reproduction and productivity of farmed fish. Fin fishes in the wild are regularly subjected to low temperature due to ensuing climate changes leading to freezing water temperature had driven major decline of cold water fishes. The adaptation of fishes to freezing temperature is the result of long term evolution. Adaptive changes in fishes in particular for low temperature, the key evolutionary innovations, anti-freezing glycoproteins, enzyme-protein structures, cold efficient microtubule assembly, cold adapted protein translocation and elevated mitochondrial densities. The low temperatures which have been shown to cause loss of major histocompatibility receptor expression in common carp and loss of these critical viral recognization proteins may provide one mechanism of increased frequency of fish disease at low temperature. The diversified expression of cold resistant genes (beta-2-microglobins, GLUT-4, GLUT-2, cGPDH, Glycerol Kinase and Acyle CoA synthetase) in rainbow trout, Common carp and schizothoracids was studied. The expression of beta-2 microglobin in rainbow trout and schizothoracids do not decrease after 10-15 days at temperature as low as 2 oC. Reverse transcriptase (RT-PCR) indicated that beta-2 microglobin transcription was maintained in both tissue and peripheral blood leucocytes. The presence of beta 2(m) level in rainbow trout and schizothoracids justifies the presence of alternative mode of immune gene regulation than IMCs allowing them to maintain viral recognization machinery at low temperature. Based on gene function analysis of cold induced gene, protein localization and protein transport were the most highly represented biological process. Our study greatly contribute to the identification of cold responsive genes in different tissues at different temperature will aid in deciphering the genetic basis of ecological and environmental adaptation in this species. In the recent years fisheries has taken the industrial recourse as fishes being the easily accessible source of food, being rich in proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins.

Biography:

Abstract:

Mosquitoes transmit dreadful diseases, causing millions of deaths every year. Dengue (mosquito borne tropical disease, caused by dengue virus) and Lymphatic filariasis (infected with the filarial worms, Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi or B. timori) diseases are transmitted by mosquito vectors Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasicatus, respectively; vector control strategies include chemical, non-chemical and biological control agents. Repetitive use of man-made insecticides for mosquito control disrupts natural biological control systems and lead to the reappearance of mosquito populations. It also resulted in the development of resistance, harmful effects on non-target organisms and human health problems and subsequent searching for an alternative control measures. Microbial products are effective against mosquitoes at very low dosages with minimum effect on other biological control agents. Therefore, screening for larvicidal activity of microbial extract attributes could lead to the development of new and improved mosquito control methods is economical and safe for non-target organisms. The purpose of the present study is to explore the larvicidal activity of soil borne microbial isolate of Bacillus megaterium, against the targeted mosquito vectors. The bacterium was isolated from soil using standard microbiological methods (serial dilution) and identified as based on colony morphology i.e., white, round, smooth and shiny. Gram staining results found to be Gram positive rods and the presence of endospores. The biochemical tests were performed and the results show catalase positive, oxidase, indole, Vogues-Proskauer negative and citrate positive. Molecular identification (based on 16S rRNA analysis and Genbank database) of the potential strain (OS1) showed 99% similarity with Bacillus megaterium. The results of partial sequenced 16S rRNA gene (with 915 bp in length) were submitted in NCBI Genbank (GenBank Accession number KR061332.1). The supernatant of B. megaterium with equal volume of ethyl acetate: methanol (1:1) was mixed and the upper layer was separated using a rotary evaporator. The separated metabolite has been used to perform the larvicidal potential of Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus larvae. The mortality rate was observed at dose-dependent activity for different stages of larval instars (second, third and fourth) of both mosquitoes. Log Probit analysis (95% confidence level) revealed an LC50 value of 113.256, 168.210, 289.597; LC90 166.735, 224.943, 289.597 and LC50 232.197, 197.659, 70.728; LC90 305.076, 283.773, 133.997 ppm/ml respectively. In the biolarvicidal assay, about 1000 ppm/ml concentration of the isolate (OS1) showed 100% mortality after 48 hours of incubation. This is the first hand information on larvicidal efficiency of ethyl acetate: Methanolic extract from an entomopathogenic bacterium B. megaterium extract and could be suitable for the control of vector borne diseases in humans, especially dengue and filariasis.

Biography:

Usman Umar Zango is currently undergoing PhD Research at Maharishi Markandeswar University, Mullana-Ambala, Haryana, India. He has published three international papers and attended one international conference.

Abstract:

Heavy metals pollution has become a major environmental concern all over the world. They are released into the environment due to anthropogenic activities and affect human health especially, if they are released in large amounts or if accumulated over the time. Heavy metals such as Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr) and Copper (Cu) are common heavy metals that are quite detrimental to the environment. Cadmium is commonly found in the effluent of electroplating and batteries industries. In the current study Aspergillus terreus and Aspergillus fumigatus were isolated from industrial effluent and identified based on morphological, 18S rRNA sequencing using ITS primer sets and phylogenetic analyses. These fungal isolates were grown at different concentrations of cadmium up to 700 mg/L. Bioremoval of the cadmium was carried out in the liquid medium under optimized conditions such as pH, temperature, inoculum size and incubation time. Maximum removal of the cadmium was obtained at a concentration of 100 mg/L with a percentage removal of 93.06% and metal uptake of 7.84 mg/g when the fungal consortium was used. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier-Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) were carried out to ascertain the effect and bioremoval activity of these fungal isolates. The study strongly affirms the use of fungal consortium for the bioremediation of heavy metals which can be harnessed to clean up the contaminated soil and water from the environment.

Biography:

K Pani Prasad has completed his PhD in Applied Aquaculture and Postdoctoral studies from University of Hawaii, USA. He is a Principal Scientist in Aquatic Animal Health Management, ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, a premier university for fisheries and aquaculture. He has published more than 60 papers in reputed peer reviewed international and national journals and guided more than 10 doctoral and 50 masters students. He has developed immunodiagnostic kits for detection of virus and bacteria of shrimps and fish.

Abstract:

Managing the health of aquatic organisms has proven to be one of the greatest challenges and opportunities for expansion of sustainable aquaculture. Effective disease control is paramount within aquatic farming systems to stop the spread of infectious pathogens. Implementation of an effective health management program consisting of well organized management and husbandry practices, efficient biosecurity and hygiene measures and improved resistance to disease through vaccination can all help to reduce and control disease at farm sites. The rapid detection of pathogens in infected fish, both clinically and sub-clinically, is desirable for effective health management in aquaculture. The methods available for the diagnosticians include, analysis of the history of disease, gross and clinical signs; direct microscopy; histopathology; routine culture and isolation of bacterial isolates on artificial media and identification using biochemical reactions on unique substrates; serological methods, hematology and clinical toxicology analysis, PCR and tissue culture; Real Time PCR, Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), Lateral flow, LAMP with lateral flow, are more advanced among the molecular techniques. Egg yolk antibodies (IgY) for developing immunodiagnostic kits or use in passive immunotherapy are in vogue. Advances in micro-technologies led to the development of new miniaturized supports for the analysis of nucleic acids and proteins. Chips or microarrays offer the advantage of being able to detect in parallel multiple targets. Among the micro/nanotechnologies one of the most promising techniques is the bio-barcode assay which ensures the ultrasensitive amplification and detection of nucleic acids and proteins. The article explains the above mentioned emerging techniques in the field of fish health management and diagnosis. With the ever increasing pathogens and diseases, there is always a requirement of more sensitive and rapid tests for disease diagnosis.

Biography:

Nebi Bilir has completed his PhD from Karadeniz Technical University of Turkey and Postdoctoral studies from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). He is the Director of Silviculture department of Forestry Faculty of Suleyman Demirel University. He also works for IUFRO organization. He has published more than 60 papers in reputed journals and 30 proceedings in national and international meetings. He has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of repute.

Abstract:

Fertility variation described by sibling coefficient, is one of the most important parameters for plant genetics and breeding programs. A sibling coefficient expresses the probability that two genes drawn randomly from the gamete gene pool originate from the same parent compared to the probability when the parents have equal representation, while fertility is defined as an individual ability to give progeny (i.e., reproductive success). Knowledge of fertility variation estimated based on reproductive characters is getting importance because of its easy, cheap and light survey. Estimation of fertility variation among genotypes is one of the important tools used different purposes such as gene conservation, seed production programs, managing forest genetic resources, evolutional and genetic management of populations for plant breeding. In this paper, general overview of fertility variation is examined based on published materials and ideas and to discuss for future studies on plant sciences.

Biography:

Zurina Zainal Abidin has received her BEng in Chemical Engineering from Loughborough University, UK in 1997, Masters (Biotechnology) at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK and PhD in 2006 from University of Manchester, UK in Biochemical Engineering. Earlier, she developed her career as a Process Engineer in Elektrisola (M) Sdn Bhd in 1998. Later in 1999, she joined Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and currently working as an Associate Professor at Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. Her research areas focus on biochemical engineering application on bioseparation using electrokinetics/microarray technology, extraction of bioproducts membrane filtration, biosensor and also wastewater treatment. She has successfully supervised many postgraduate in similar disciplines and also published more than 30 articles in relation to biochemical engineering area.

Abstract:

Pathogens that usually associated with pathogenesis affect human health with massive diseases including chronic infections or immune system disorders. Although numerous vaccinations have been introduced to protect against diseases, some pathogens continues to threaten living life. The current pathogen detection method which based on molecular culture and PCR techniques are essentially slow and time consuming. In recent time, several researchers have attempted to develop rapid detecting tool. Despite advanced engineering, there is still need for an accurate and rapid pathogen detection tool. Thus, this research was carried out to highlight on detection of pathogens using optical biosensor. An optical biosensor (microchannel) is relatively an accurate method of early detection of pathogen. Optical microchannel was fabricated with fiber optics by using photolithography method. Fiber optic biosensor is light scattering, absorption and optical properties of the microorganisms. The chemical composition, energy, the total nucleotides and photo pigments will define the absorption properties of each microorganism. E. coli was detected at region of 280 nm to 285 nm by using the microchannel while, S. cerevisiae identified at visible region of 570 nm to 580 nm. The entire detection can be done in less than 10 minutes with minimum required cells of 1x102 cells per mL with total volume of 6 µl. These detection regions for each sample were compared with spectrophotometer measurement plus theoretical calculations by using Beer Lambert law of absorption.

Biography:

Dr. D.V. Gokhale has completed his Ph. D in 1988 from Pune University. At present, he is the Emeritus Scientist in National Chemical Laboratory. He has more than 75 publications in reputed journals and 12 patents.

Abstract:

Lignocellulosic biomass is recognized as potential sustainable source for production of power, biofuels and variety of commodity chemicals which would potentially add economic value to biomass. Recalcitrance nature of biomass is largely responsible for the high cost of its conversion. Biotechnology provides the tools for biomass production and its valorization to various products. Biomass such as agricultural lignocellulosic residues, edible and non-edible crops and waste streams like bagasse from sugar manufacturers can be used for the production of commodity chemicals. The native biomass is recalcitrance due to its complex structure and hence the biomass components are not easily accessible to enzymatic attack. Therefore it is necessary to introduce some cost effective pretreatment processes to make the biomass polysaccharides easily amenable to enzymatic attack to release mixed fermentable sugars. India is one of the largest sugar cane growing countries, producing approximately 300 million tons per year, which generate about 75 million tons of sugarcane bagasse on dry weight basis. It is one of the main byproducts of the sugar industry which is already available at plant site. We developed strains producing high amounts of cellulase both in submerged fermentation (SmF) and solid state fermentation (SSF). We also developed Lactobacillus strains producing L- and D- lactic acids which produce these acids with very high productivity. Both cellulase producers and lactic acid producers were exploited for lactic acid production from bagasse. The results and future perspectives will be discussed during my presentation.

Biography:

Mr. Sandeep Patnaik graduated with his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2009 and then his keen interest to pursue interdisciplinary research drove him to pursue his master’s in nanoscience and nanotechnology, SSSIHL, India. He was also a visiting student at the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore in 2010. Currently, he is a senior research fellow at the department of physics, SSSIHL, working on “Nanoformulations for Improved Oral Bioavailability of some NSAIDs”. His research interests include pharmaceutical nanotechnology, and applied electrochemistry.

Abstract:

One of the major obstacles to the development of highly potent pharmaceutics is the poor water solubility of many drugs. Low water solubility limits the bioavailability and absorption of these agents. By improving the drug release profile of these drugs, it is possible to enhance their bioavailability and reduce side effects. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) although are very effective as pain killers and anti-inflammatory agents, these belong to the type II category of the biopharmaceutical classification system, indicating that, though these drugs have a relatively high membrane permeability, their bioavailability remains limited due to their poor solubility in aqueous media. Formulations of nanodispersions in polymers have attracted considerable interest as an efficient means of improving the dissolution rate and hence the bioavailability of a range of hydrophobic drugs. In these formulations, the drug molecules are dispersed molecularly but irregularly in the hydrophilic carrier and hence the drug remains in its highly energetic amorphous form. Our endeavor would be to tailor make the synthesis routes in a manner that would result in reduction of the polymer dimensions also to nanoscale in an effort to make the dispersions more effective in carrying, stabilizing and releasing the drug particles that are encapsulated. In this work, novel nanoformulations of some of the NSAIDs: Piroxicam, Aceclophenac, Naproxen and Ibuprofen - several hydrophilic and amphiphillic polymers have been explored and evaluated. The methods of synthesis of the nanodispersions include wet chemical methods like solvent evaporation, microemulsion followed by solvent extraction, and nanoprecipitation and ball milling and a few solvent-free synthetic procedures like microwave heating and hot melt extrusion. The characterization techniques used to evaluate the nature, purity of phase and other properties of the nanodispersions include FTIR, PXRD, DSC and FESEM. Further evaluation of the behavior of the nanodispersions has been done by incorporating them in the most popular oral dosage form, i.e. tablets, and testing the dissolution profiles and assessing the drug release rates from them. Accelerated stability studies were performed on the tablets to establish the storage stability of the nanodispersions over a time of 3 to 6 months.

Biography:

Kathleen Hefferon has received her PhD from the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto and continued her Postdoctoral studies at Cornell University. She has worked as Faculty at the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell and has written two books on biopharmaceuticals in plants. She teaches and conducts research at both the University of Toronto and Cornell University. She has 4 patents, edited 6 books and has multiple research publications.

Abstract:

Plant made biologics have elicited much attention over recent years for their potential in assisting those in developing countries who have poor access to modern medicine. Additional applications such as the stockpiling of vaccines against pandemic infectious diseases or potential biological warfare agents are also under investigation. Plant virus expression vectors represent a technology that enables high levels of pharmaceutical proteins to be produced in a very short period of time. Recent advances in research and development have brought about the generation of superior virus expression systems which can be readily delivered to the host plant in a manner that is both efficient and cost effective. The following presentation describes recent innovations in plant virus expression systems and their uses for producing biologics from plants.

Biography:

Dr. Pham Van Toan is an Associate Professor at the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VAAS). He has served as the Director of the Post Graduate Training Department since 2011. Privously , he was the Head of the Department of Agricultural Microbiology at Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute (VASI) and the Soil and Ferilizer Institute. He was the Director of the Office for the Biotechnology Program in Agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). He has conducted research on the fields of applied microbiology in the agriculture like biofertilizer and biopesticide and bioteatment of environmental pollution . He has also managed on the field of research and development of biotechnology, biosafety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), GMO products and post-graduate training. Dr. Toan is the secratery of the biosafety committees of MARD; the food, feed safety committee of MARD and the Vietnam Coordinator of the biofertilizer project coordinated by the Forum of Nuclear Cooperation in Asia (FNCA). He completed his undergraduate and graduate education at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.

Abstract:

Vietnam is a tropical country and has a diverse ecosystems as well as diverse biodiversity, but also frequent natural disasters. At present Vietnam is predominantly an agricultural country. 55% labor force in agricultural sector and 75% population live in rural area. Vietnam government policy is to develop the biotechnology as priority in economy development strategy. Agricultural biotechnology is the major component in biotechnology development with the aaim to increase the productivity and quality of agro products, their competitiveness in the markets, the farmer’s income and to effective protection of environment. Application of GM crops is one of objectives of agricultural biotechnology program in Vietnam. Vietnam becam the member of Cartagena Protocol in 2004 and renewed the Environmental protection Law in 2006, the Biodiversity law in 2008 and the Food safety law in 2010 with additional regulations on the biosafety of LMO and GM products. To implementing the laws, Vietnam Goverment and it’s authority ministeria (Ministry of natural resources and environment - MONRE, Ministry of agriculture and rural development – MARD, Ministry of science and technology (MOST)) promulgated the goverment decrees and miniaterial or multiministerial regulations on the research, development of LMO, the risk assessments, the biosafety certification on environment, the certification of food, feed safety and the production, commercialization, import, export, transportation and storage of GMO and GMO products. Since 2015 Vietnam allows to grow the GM corn in the field. At present 5 events of GM corn are certified as environmental biosafety and 18 events of GM corn, GM soybean are certified as food, feed safety in Vietnam.

Biography:

Nguyen Duy Hoan has completed his PhD from Moscow Veterinary Academia, Russia in 1994. He is the Senior Lecturer of Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, Vietnam. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an Editorial Board Member of 2 reputable journals.

Abstract:

Luong Phuong (LP) breed of chickens are kept very popular in Vietnam because it reported to be capable of acclimatization to the Vietnam rural production environment. However, there have been serious complaints that the reproduction performance of LP breeds of chicken is medium. Vizyme is one kind of probiotic produced by Alibaba Group. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of probiotic vizyme (VIZ) on reproduction performance of Luong Phuong (LP) layers. A total of 144 LP pullets of 16 weeks old were divided into 12 groups, each with 12 pullets. These were randomly assigned to 4 treatments containing 0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 g of VIZ/liter of drinking water in completely randomized design with 3 replications for a study period of 22 weeks. The results obtained showed that there was no significant difference among all the treatment groups in feed consumption, sexual maturity, survival rate and feed conversion efficiency (P>0.05) to an age of pullets, whereas the mean body weight gain of the groups of 24 weeks placed on the treatment containing 1.0 to 1.5 g of VIZ/liter of drinking water were significantly (P<0.05) higher than the control groups. The results obtained also showed that there was no significant (P>0.05) difference between all the treatment groups of layers in feed consumption, fertility and hatchability (P<0.05) to an age of 37 weeks. On the other side, the mean weekly egg production and feed conversion efficiency during the laying period were significantly higher (P<0.05) for the groups of layers placed on the treatment containing 0.5 to 1.5 g of VIZ/liter of drinking water compared to that of the groups placed on the control treatments. In summary, the results of this study showed that inclusion of 0.5 to 1.5 g of VIZ/liter of drinking water resulted in significant improvement in survival and growth rate, egg production, feed conversion efficiency and egg quality parameters.

Biography:

Salah Akkal has completed his PhD at the age of 39 years from Constantine University.He was supervised on 4 M.Sc. thesis and 5 Ph-D. He is professor for natural product chemistry since 2007 in Chemistry Department, Faculty of science. He has published more than 56 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of repute and has been serving as a reviewer for many articles in her specialization. He attended more than 15 International Conferences He teaching all the organic courses for the students of Faculty of Science and Faculty of Technology in University of Constantine, Algeria.

Abstract:

The Apiaceae family is represented in Algeria by 28 genus and 146 species. Among this family, many plants of the genus are widely used in local herbal medicine, as they show a wide range of pharmacological activities. Many species of Apiaceae were used in folk medicine, as spices in cookery, but also as official medicinal drugs. Thus, they account as a well known source of essential oils and important herbal products. They are included in various pharmacopoeias as antiseptic, expectorant, diuretic, carminative, vasodilator or spasmolytic agents. The purpose of this research concerns the phytochemical and the biological study of some genus of the Algerian flora’s medicinal plants known as Return, Formula, Bupleurum, Daucus. The diverse methods of separation and purification of the methanolic extract of these plants is to obtain many constituents. Many compounds belonging to different classes of secondary metabolites were isolated for the first time from the aerial parts of some species. These include flavonoids, coumarines, terpenoides, epoxide and a sugar which contributed to the diversity of natural products in the species. The structure elucidation of the isolated compounds was based on analyses of their spectroscopic data (1D and 2D NMR, UV, MS). Structure elucidations of the phytoconstituents were achieved using various spectroscopic methods such as 1D (1H, 13C) and 2D (COSY, HMQC, HMBC, NOESY) NMR, MS, IR and UV-Vis and by comparison of their data with those of published compounds. Analyses of the extracts by gas chromatography and GC-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) tentatively identified many compounds, the various extracts and isolated compounds of this species were studied for their antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. The isolation of these biological active compounds showed the real importance to investigate plants that can be sources of new compounds with clinical activities.

Biography:

Dr. Ragiba Makandar is working as Associate Professor at University of Hyderabad (UoH), India. Her lab’s research is aimed at studying mechanisms of plant-microbe interactions. She has been working with crop and model plants for the past 20 years and published research findings in reputed journals. She has been a Visiting Scientist at ASU Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Arizona, US. Before joining UoH as Reader, she worked as Research Assistant Professor at University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, US subsequent to her Post doctoral Research studies at University of North Texas, Texas, US; Kansas State University, Kansas USA; Hawaii Agricultural Research Center (HARC), Hawaii, US and her doctoral studies at IARI, New Delhi.

Abstract:

Plants are constantly challenged by pathogens and the impact of pathogen invasion especially on agriculturally important plants is devastative owing to their narrow genetic base. The molecular events underlying host and pathogen interaction seem to involve elicitor-receptor recognition mechanisms which further activate defense responses of the host. Recognition of the pathogen results in the induction of host components and signaling pathways leading to the activation of downstream pathogenesis related genes, some of which possess antimicrobial activity. Genetic manipulation of components of defense signaling pathways offers an alternative strategy to combat disease in plants. Regulatory genes that control the expression of multiple defense genes are excellent targets for developing broad spectrum and durable resistance against pathogens. We have demonstrated that expression of Arabidopsis NPR1, a key regulatory gene of salicylic acid (SA) signaling in Arabidopsis and wheat confers enhanced resistance to Fusarium graminearum, a fungal pathogen causing head blight or scab disease of wheat and barley. Using Arabidopsis- Fusarium graminearum pathosystem, we have attempted to understand the molecular interactions underlying disease resistance and susceptibility mechanisms by characterizing the genetic mutations affecting SA and JA (jasmonic acid) signaling in Arabidopsis. SA and JA are two important disease signaling molecules activating host defense responses. The research findings on detection of signaling components which control resistance or susceptibility mechanisms during a host-pathogen interaction using biotechnological tools shall be presented.

Biography:

Sumera Yasmin has completed her PhD in “Biotechnology” from Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Pakistan. She is a “Principal Scientist” at Soil and environmental Biotechnology Division, NIBGE. She is being involved in production and quality control of BioPower i.e., commercial biofertilizer developed at NIBGE. She has published 10 papers in reputed journals.

Abstract:

Phosphorus (P) is one of the major essential macronutrient for plant metabolic processes. Phosphorous in soil is abundantly found as mineral or organic phosphorous. Despite its abundance available P for plant uptake is scarce. To meet the plant requirement chemical application of phosphatic fertilizer is practiced to secure the crop production but excessive deposition of P in soil and water after run-off not just deplete P reserves also lead to chains of events that cause irreversible damages to ecosystems. A group of plant growth promoting organism including both heterotrophic bacteria and fungi play a central role in the natural phosphorus cycle capable of transforming insoluble and unavailable P into soluble and plant accessible forms across different genera. These are phosphate solubilizing microorganisms (PSM). Efficient phosphobacteria were isolated, characterized and identified to develop phosphatic biofertilizers for utilizing the fixed and unavailable forms of phosphate in Pakistani soils. Qualitative and quantitative methods have been used to optimize the P-solubilization by the bacterial strains for different environmental factors. The selected phosphobacteria were explored for P-solubilizing mechanisms using HPLC. These bacteria were found to have growth promoting determinants i.e., phytohormone and siderophores production and biocontrol potential. In planta assays suggested these effective phosphobacteria can help in the development of an eco-friendly means for P nutrition of crops.

Biography:

Anil Prakash is a Professor and Chairman Board of Studies Microbiology, Department of Microbiology, Barkatullah University, Bhopal, India. He has conducted Post Doctoral Research at Kyushu University, Kyushu, Japan. He has published more than 60 research papers and 5 research articles in national and international journals. He has edited 4 books, 2 books were published by Springer. He has three decades of research and teaching experience in the field of Microbiology, plant-microbes’ interaction, PGPR, mushroom, mycorrhizal technology and Endophytic fungi from Medicinal plants. He has completed an international collaborating project with Indo-Swiss.

Abstract:

Endophytes are the intact multifarious group of microorganism colonizes the tissue of the host plants without being recognized as pathogens and known to have impacts on plant communities through increasing fitness by conferring abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. Accelerate seedling emergence, promote plant establishment and growth enhancement by helping plants in acquiring nutrients, e.g. via nitrogen fixation, ammonia production, phosphate solubilization or iron chelation, by preventing pathogen infection via antifungal or antibacterial or insecticidal agents, by out competing pathogens for nutrients by siderophore production or by establishing the plants systemic resistance and growth promotion by producing phytohormones like auxin or cytokinin or by producing ACC deaminase, which lowers ethylene levels depending upon the mechanism applied. It is still unproved that endophytes from rhizosphere or arial are more potent as many factors play a vital role to determine the mines and activity of the group. Much more exploration related to plant growth activity and to untapped and maintain this attributes as in nature is to be done for getting appropriate answers.

Biography:

Abstract:

Chemical pesticide-residue is one of the most troubling facets of everyday life in most countries around the world. With resistance being built among pests, dosages are increasing, causing even more trouble for the end-consumer. Nematode infestation is one of the major stresses affecting crop production worldwide. Chemical control has led to the development of resistance and additionally, synthetic nematicides indiscriminately destroy beneficial soil fauna. There is more reasons everyday to find newer, less harmful ways to control the pest/fungi/nematode problem. Biological control is one of the most promising solutions. After all, mice are never going to develop a resistance to cats! The paper will discuss the use of Paecilomyces lilacinus, a biocontrol method for nematode control. It will discuss the problem of nematodes globally, their effect on crop production and will go on to speak about possible solutions, focusing on the bio-actives Paecilomyces lilacinus, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Trichoderma species. I will present the active ingredients, discussing life-cycle, usability, costs involved, materials and methods and go on to describe the beneficial environmental impact of using biocontrol techniques. Toward the end, I hope to speak about our own products.

Biography:

Preecha P. Yupapin received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from City University of London in 1993. He has been a visiting professor with Kasem Bundit University and Kasetsart University, Thailand since 2015. He has authored/co-authored more than 850 research papers in Google Scholar database, 430 papers in Scopus database, 460 papers in research gate, 45 papers in Pubmed, and 45 chapters and books. His research interests are in multi-physics, spintronics, brain science, nano-communication and networks, nano-medicine and beauty, nano-energy, quantum information and quantum life. He has been appointed as an editor in chief and editorial board member of more than 20 international journals.

Abstract:

In this paper, the development of a high performance nano-sized micro/nano scale device called a Panda ring resonator is presented for brain investigation. It is a nonlinear optical/spintronic device, which can be used under the concept of nonlinear Panda ring resonator for various applications. The ideal operation of the Panda ring resonator will be realized by using the spin-wave packet confined in the coupled ferromagnetic circular nanorings, where the field sensing with nano-meter spatial resolution and ultra-high sensitivity comparable to the fabricated device, which will be demonstrated at room temperature with keeping high tenability and flexibility. In practice, such a device can be designed and worked similarly for various optical applications, where in this case the metallic device will be used instead of optical device (semiconductor). Moreover, this is a spin-wave electronic device, in which the current free device concept is introduced, which is useful for brain investigation, in which non-invasive investigation is realized. By extending these sensing techniques, we will also develop the novel high performance spintronic devices such as nano-medical detector and brain sensors, which are theoretically confirmed by the author’s previous works. These innovative demonstrations make a breakthrough for spin-based nano-electronic and energy harvesting devices. Finally, the spin wave device design, fabrication and taste for various applications will be discussed.