Assistant Professor

Dr. Bhagyalakshmi Kalidass

Department of Environmental Science

Interests

  1. Bioremediation
  2. Methanotrophy
  3. Wastewater treatment

Faculty Details

Education

2010

NIT
Durgapur
B.Tech

2012

IIT
Kharagpur
M.Tech

2016

University of Michigan
USA
Ph.D.

Experience

  • 2013, Graduate student instructor (GSI) | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Research Experience

  • Research Scholar
    Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, Bangalore.
    From 01 Jan 2006 – 30 June 2010. (4 Years 5 Months and 29 Days)
  • Research Assistant
    Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, Bangalore.
    From 01 Sep 2005 – 30 Dec 2005. (4 Months)

Research Interest

  • Heavy metals pose a serious threat to human health due to its toxic nature even at concentrations as low as 2-10 ppb. My research has focused on the plasmid borne resistance to arsenic in bacteria isolated from arsenic contaminated groundwater in West Bengal. Such plasmids harboring heavy metal resistance genes may work as prospective bioremediation agents.
  • Further, my PhD research focused on methanotrophic bacteria that act as a biological sink to remove significant amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by microbiological oxidation. The study implored the effects of transition metals on gene regulation in methanotrophs. Metals found to affect the methanotrophic activity and the methanotrophic community may have a potential for promoting in situ methane oxidation and/or pollutant degradation.
  • Bioremediation of heavy metals, bioremediation of methane using methanotrophs, and biological treatment of wastewater

Awards & Fellowships

  • Best poster presentation award by American Vacuum Society (AVS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, USA in Fall meeting-2014
  • Brain Korea (BK21) Plus research fellowship at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea in 2016
  • Korea research fellowship(KRF) from Natiotional Reseach Foundation (NRF), South Korea in 2016

Memberships

  • American Society for Microbiology

List of Publications

  • Kalidass, B., Ul-Haque, M. F., Baral, B. S., DiSpirito, A. A., Semrau, J. D. (2015) Competition between metals for binding to methanobactin enables expression of soluble methane monooxygenase in the presence of copper. Appl Environ Microbiol 81(3): 1024–1031.
  • Ul-Haque, M F.#, Kalidass, B.#, Vorobev, A., Baral, B. S., DiSpirito, A. A., Semrau, J. D. (2015) Methanobactin from Methylocystis sp. Strain SB2 affects gene expression and methane monooxygenase activity in Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b. Appl Environ Microbiol 81(7): 2466–2473. #Equally contributing first authors.
  • Ul-Haque, M F.#, Kalidass, B.#, Bandow, N., Turpin, E. A., DiSpirito, A. A., Semrau, J. D. (2015) Cerium regulates expression of alternative methanol dehydrogenases in Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b. Appl Environ Microbiol 81(21): 7546–7552. #Equally contributing first authors.

Presentations

  • Gordon Research Seminar, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2015 - This is an open forum for presentations and discussions of the latest research findings on the environmental impact and industrial application of microorganisms, metagenomics, single cell genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics.
  • Gordon Research Conference, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2015 - Poster presentation titled “Methanobactin-A metal binding compound with multiple roles”.
  • National workshop on Environmental Genomics And Biotechnology, 2011 - Contributed in organizing this workshop that highlighted the areas like gene expression profiling, transcriptomics and microarray, metagenomics, high throughput analytics in genomic studies, bioinformatic tools, application in ‘-omics’-studies.
  • National conference on Future of Biotechnology in India, 2009 - Jointly organized by: Department Of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur and Department of Food Technology & Biochemical Engineering, Jadavpur University. Technical sessions focused on the topics - Nutraceuticals & Nutragenomics, Prebiotics & Probiotics, and Enzymes in Food Application, Transgenic Food, Novel Techniques in Food Preservation, and Biosafety and Intellectual Property.
  • National workshop on Modeling and Simulation of Biological processes - This workshop gave an effectual intellect to the subject of modeling and simulation by lectures and discussions on model construction, a systematic modeling procedure, elimination methods, process simulation techniques and models for thermal stabilization. It also included a learning and practice session on Matlab.
  • National seminar on The Present Industrial Scenario of Biotechnology in India - The seminar was organized by National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, and Department of Biotechnology. It brought about the awareness of the technical needs for working in an industry which is the other side to the knowledge gained in the theory and practical classes.
  • Workshop on Database Management System and its application in Bioinformatics - Biological database have become a vital part of our biological literature. The biological literature is growing exponentially as well. Lectures and tutorial sessions on learning the skills necessary to design, create and query a relational database.

Contact Details

  • E-mail id: bhagyalakhsmi.k@srmap.edu.in
  • Mobile No.: +91-8903677559
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