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Prof. Rup Lal |
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Professor Department
of Zoology University
of Delhi |
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Editor-in-Chief |
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Indian
Journal of Microbiology |
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Born
in a small village, Kanoh in District Hamirpur, in the state of Himachal
Pradesh, India on the 27th September 1953, Prof. Lal received his
primary education at the Government High School Bani, Himachal Pradesh. He
did his graduation from D.A.V College, Jalandhar, Gurunanak Dev University in
1973 and M.Sc. from Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra in 1975. Therafter, he
started his research career with a Ph.D from University of Delhi, Delhi
(1975-1980). His teaching career started as a lecturer in Zoology at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, New Delhi in 1979. He was appointed as reader at the Department of Zoology, University of Delhi in 1992. In April 2000, he became professor in the same Department. He was the Head of the Department of Zoology (Nov, 2007-Nov, 2010) and Dean, Faculty of Science (Nov, 2007- July, 2010), University of Delhi. He has also served as Chairman of Board of Research Studies, Member of Academic & Executive Council, University of Delhi (2007-2010) and Coordinator UGC, SAP programme (2007-2010). He has been awarded several fellowships and recognitions during the course of his research career. He was awarded Alexander von Humboldt fellowship from July 1988 to August 1990 and worked at the University of Bielefeld, Gentechnologie/Mikrobiologie, Federal Republic of Germany. He subsiquently visited (under the AVH Fellowship) University of Bielefeld between, May 1995 to July 1995; June to July, 2004 and June to July 15th, 2008. He was also awarded Department of Biotechnology Short term Overseas Associateship from May to Oct, 2000 to work with Prof. John Cullum at the Department of Genetics, University of Kaiserslauterm, Germany. Subsequently, He has also been a visiting Scientist at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge from February to May, 1998. He was also awarded Indo-US professorship for the year 2008-09 by American Society of Microbiology (ASM) to conduct research on "Genetic Manipulations of Amycolatopsis medeterranei S699 for the production of rifamycin analogs" with Dr. Taifo Mahmud at the Oregon State University in Corvalis. He has been instrumental in running two very long and fruitful international collaboration under ISCB (Between DU, IMTECH, EAWAG and EPFL) and IACB (Between DU, IMTECH and CSIRO, Canberra.) His primary research interests include microbial diversity at pesticide polluted sites, genetic and biochemistry of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) degradation and development of HCH bioremediation technology. Prof. Rup Lal is also interested in the evolution of lin genes and genetic manipulation of rifamycin producer Amycolatopsis mediterranei. His group has already sequenced complete genome of Amycolatopsis mediterranei, S699 and also working on its related aspects. He is also actively involved in sequencing genomes of Sphingobium indicum, Thermus sp. RLMT and Acinetobacter sp. Currently, he is exploring metagenomic diversity of the HCH dumpsite. He has nearly 120 publications in peer-reviewed journals attracting over 1000 ISI citations along with h-index 16. He also has a US patent to his credit for the development of first effective series of cloning vectors for different strains of A. mediterranei. Prof. Rup Lal has supervised more than 35 Ph.D. students and currently has 8 students under his guidance. Many of his Ph. D. students are well settled and some of them are leaders in various capacities. Other than research and teaching, he has shouldered many significant responsibilities. He was a member of review committee on Genetically Modified Organisms (RCGM) from 2000 to 2002 and chairman of working group of National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) from March 2005 to 2007. He is also an ambassador of the International HCH and Pesticide Association (IHPA). Presently, he is a member of the Review Committee for the ASM-IUSSTF Indo-US Professorship in Microbiology (2009-2012). He is also member of the expert committee for women scientists (Bio-CARe Programme), DBT since May 2011. He will be taking over as ASM ambassador from July 2011 for the Indian Ocean region. He made a significant contribution for upbringing semester system at UG and PG courses in the capacity of Dean, Faculty of Sciences. Rup Lal is also Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of Microbiology (INJM) and Associate Editor of BMC Biotechnology & BMC Biochemistry. His effort has led to the publication of INJM in association with Springer India Ltd. He is the Fellow of Association of Microbiologists of India (FAMI) and Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (FNAAS). |
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Scientific contributions: Prof. Lal has been involved in research and teaching in the field of molecular biology and environmental microbiology for the past 30 years. He has guided more than 35 students for Ph.D. till date and currently his group has more than 8 research students. Initial phase of his research work started with the genetic manipulation of Amycolatopsis mediterranei, a bacteria that produces Rifamycin, an antibiotic used for curing tuberculosis. His efforts since 1988 have led to the development of a series of cloning vectors for several species of Amycolatopsis . This technology of developing cloning vectors has been granted US patent (US Patent no. 005985560A). Presently, his lab is involved in sequencing the complete genome of Amycolatopsis mediterranei S699 and Sphingobium indicum B90A using hybrid approach of pyrosequencing and Sanger's method. The sequence information would eventually find application in combinatorial biosynthesis of antibiotic analogs of different generations. Another major area his group is working on, is the molecular genetics of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) degradation by sphingomonads that could eventually lead to the development of a technology for bioremediation of HCH contaminated soils. He has extensively studied the degradation of HCH by Sphingobium indicum (formerly known as Sphingomonas paucimobilis B90A). His group has unravelled the physiological and genetic aspects of HCH degradation in B90A and has provided evidence for the stability and horizontal transfer of ' lin ' genes (responsible for HCH degradation) among different bacteria. The study has also led to the cloning of genes responsible for the mineralization of α- and γ- isomers of HCH in B90A and dynamics of ' lin ' gene expression. The group is working on deciphering the degradation pathway (hitherto not known) of ' ß '- HCH and α- and δ- HCH. Alongside, hisgroup is attempting bioremediation of HCH contaminated sites by 'bioaugmentation', 'biostimulation' and 'enzymatic bioremediation' approaches. Apart from the above two major aspects, his group is also working on the molecular taxonomy of microorganisms isolated from polluted sites as well as selected extremophiles. His laboratory is one of the few labs in India extensively using molecular tools for taxonomic identification of microorganisms and has recently identified several novel bacteria.
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