_edited.jpg)
KARAN KUMAR
Prime Minister's Research Fellow
School of Energy Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
To check updated website, click here
Research
Motivation
Here are the few motivation for my current research interest
DOCTORAL THESIS RESEARCH
My research interests includes application of state-of-the-art techniques from:
-
Systems Metabolic Engineering​​
-
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
-
Bioinformatics (molecular docking)
-
Molecular Dynamic simulations and Density functional theory (DFT) calculations
-
Mathematical and kinetic modeling
​Currently, my research work includes:
-
Comparative Genomics
-
Constraint-based metabolic modelling
-
Transcriptomics, Metabolomics, Fluxomics
-
Genetic engineering
-
Enzyme catalysis
-
Protein-protein interaction, enzyme-substrate interaction
Thesis Title (tentative)
Investigation and Enhancing the Production of Alcoholic Biofuels using Systems Metabolic Engineering Approach
Hypothesis for the Study
-
Advanced Omics technology must be applied to further rationally engineer the best clostridium strain
-
Increasing the level of the cytosolic substrate of the butanol production pathway, acetyl-CoA, would improve butanol yields
-
Adaptive evolution to ensure high product tolerance and inhibitor tolerance by the microorganism
-
Application of systems metabolic engineering tools might improve the production of alcoholic biofuels and play an important role in understanding the regulation of bio-butanol production in solventogenic Clostridia
Meet The Research Team
Karan Kumar
Karan Kumar is a research scholar at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. He received his bachelor's degree (2018) in Biotechnology from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Calicut. He is conferred with the prestigious Prime Minister's Research Fellowship to pursue PhD in the Interdisciplinary areas of Science and Engineering at School of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Guwahati. He joined IIT Guwahati in July 2018 under the supervision of Prof. V S Moholkar. He is also the recipient of AcSIR- Dr A.P.J Abdul Kalam Summer Research Fellowship (2017). Karan does research in Environmental Engineering and Biotechnology. His current research works include molecular dynamic simulation, production of alcoholic biofuel, and mathematical modelling of enzymatic reactions. Previously, he has worked on projects related to Drug Affinity Responsive Target Stability (DARTS), hydrothermal synthesis of carbon nanostructured materials, and conjugation chemistry with well known antibacterial and anti-tumor drugs.
Professor V. S. Moholkar
Thesis Supervisor
Prof. Dr. V. S. Moholkar (b. 1972) is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. He received Bachelors (1993) and Masters (1996) degree in chemical engineering from Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) Mumbai, followed by PhD from University of Twente in 2002. He has been Head of the Chemical Engineering Department between 2012-2015, and Head of School of Energy Science and Engineering between 2017-2020. His main research interests are sonochemistry, cavitation assisted physical, chemical, and biological processing and thermo- and biochemical routes to biofuels. As of April 2020, he has published more than 160 papers in renowned international journals that have received more than 7000 citations (with an h-index of 50). He is co-inventor of 3 US patents (issued to CTI Nanotech, CA, USA) on application of hydrodynamic cavitation reactors for biomass pretreatment and bioalcohol synthesis. As of May 2020, he has graduated 17 PhD and 32 M.Tech. students. He has been elected as Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in July 2016. He has also been elected as Fellow of Institution of Chemical Engineers, UK. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng) registered with Engineering Council of UK. He was admitted as Senior Member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (MAIChE (Sr.)) in August 2016.
OTHER COMPLETED PROJECTS
Bachelor's Thesis Projects (Phase I, II, and III): ​
Project | 02: Synthesis, Characterization, and Conjugation of Carbon-Based Nanostructured materials With Anticancer and Antibiotic Drugs for Better Efficacy and Internalization into the respective hosts. - (completed)
​​
Supervisor: Dr. Rathinasamy K., Associate Professor, School of Biotechnology, NIT Calicut, Kerala, India.
​
This project was part of B.Tech project (Mini and Major Phase-I & II). In this work, I have synthesized, characterized and evaluated the biological activity of carbon-based nanostructured materials (CBNMs) and CBNMs assisted drug delivery in mammalian cancer cells and bacteria. I synthesized CBNMs from natural sources like fruit juices by hydrothermal treatment and characterized it using various spectrometric approaches (UV-vis spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, FTIR, and DLS analysis) and microscopic techniques (SEM, TEM, and fluorescence microscope
AcSIR-Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Summer Training (2017): ​
Project | 03: To Identify the Molecular Target of Patulin using Drug Affinity Responsive Target Stability (DARTS) -(completed)
​​
Supervisor: Dr. Kausar Mahmood Ansari, Scientist, Environmental and Carcinogenesis Laboratory, CSIR- Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
​
This project was part of AcSIR- Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Summer Training Programme 2017. This work was intended to identify the molecular target of mycotoxin "patulin" in IEC-6 using Drug Affinity Responsive Target Stability (DARTS) technique. I worked for period of two months and successfully submitted the report to Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR). During this time, I was exposed to mammalian cell culture techniques, SDS-PAGE, and western blot technique.
Summer Reserach Internship (2016): ​
Project | 04: Binding Interaction of a Synthetic Compound with Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) using Fluorimetric Analysis -(completed)
​
Supervisor: Dr. Rathinasamy K., Associate Professor, School of Biotechnology, NIT Calicut, Kerala, India.
​
This work was a short term summer project in School of biotechnology, NIT Calicut under Dr. Rathinasamy K. The study was intended to characterize the interactions of small molecules with serum albumins using multi-spectrometric approaches like UV-visible spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy, Circular Dichroism spectroscopy, and Dynamic Light Scattering.
​
