Editorial Board

Journal :   TEXILA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BASIC MEDICAL SCIENCES

Biography

DR. PENDRU RAGHUNATH is Working as an Associate Professor of Microbiology, Chair, Dept of Paraclinical Sciences in School of Medicine, Texila American University, Georgetown, Guyana, South America. Responsibilities included teaching Medical Microbiology and Immunology for undergraduate medical students of the college. As a head of the department, I will look after other administrative duties such as coordination of departmental faculty, organisation of teaching, research and associated activities

Dr. PENDRU RAGHUNATH  has a Very good experience in gene knock out techniques and site-directed mutagenesis in bacteria. Expertised in gene complementation, in vivo and in vitro virulence studies. Transcriptome profiling and data analysis. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and reportering. Developed dynabeads enrichment method for the selective isolation of bacteria of interest. Experience in maintenance of different cell lines such as SP2/O, Caco-2, J774A.1 and HeLa. Experience in performing cytotoxicity and adhesion assays in Caco-2, J774A.1 and HeLa cell lines. Cloning of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes into suitable vector, DNA sequencing and sequence analysis using different bioinformatics tools. Handling laboratory animals and production of monoclonal antibodies using hybridoma technology. PCR and different variants of PCR like RT-PCR and real time PCR techniques in identification of target genes of bacteria and viruses. Expertised in DNA and RNA isolation from bacteria, blood and different tissues. Cloning and expression of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes in Escherichia coli. DNA hybridization, colony hybridization and southern blotting. Expertised in molecular typing methods such as RAPD, ERIC-PCR, RFLP and PCR-    RFLP. Expertised in modern immunological tools like ELISA, dot blot and western blot techniques. Expertised in protein purification and characterization by chromatographic techniques. Gel electrophoresis of proteins and nucleic acids. Conventional microbiological techniques for isolation and identification of bacteria, fungi, parasites and bacteriophages

DR. PENDRU RAGHUNATH Honors and awards are as follows

• Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) awarded by Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi for doctoral research work based on all India level competitive examination
• Doctoral degree awarded by the Manipal University for the research work done on “Virulence   genes of seafood associated Vibrio parahaemolyticus”  in July 2008
• Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) Young Scientist Award for the year 2008 in Dairy and Food Microbiology
• Member of the Pillay Aquaculture Award (Triennial group award) for the year 2007 received by Dr. Indrani Karunasagar, Professor and Head, Dept of Microbiology, College of Fisheries, Mangalore
• Name included in Marquis Who's who in the world 2013 (30th Pearl Anniversary edition' VIP number: 36508395)
• The Outstanding Presentation Award given at the 2010-2011 RIP Seminars of the Clinical Vaccine R&D Center on September 01, 2011.
• Recognised reviewer for several International Scientific Journals
• Selected as a guest associate editor for Frontiers in Microbiology, a open access journal
• Selected as a editorial board member for International Journal of Microbiology Research, Microbiology research and Merit Research Journal of Microbiology and Biological Sciences (MRJMBS) journals

Research Interest

DR. PENDRU RAGHUNATH have been working on food-borne pathogens such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio vulnificus which are of significance both to the food processing industries and general public health since 8 years. During my Ph.D, I worked on development of molecular methods such as PCR, oligonucleotide probe based hybridization for rapid detection of these pathogens. I also developed monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies based ELISA method forrapid detection of these pathogens.During my postdoctoral research, I worked in the project titled “Research for molecular pathogenesis of Vibrio vulnificus infection and vaccine development”.  During this project, we have analyzed the transcriptome of V. vulnificus infecting rat peritoneal cavity using an optimized high-density oligonucleotide DNA chip of the genome project strain V. vulnificus CMCP6. We found that many of the redox- or anaerobiosis-related genes were up-regulated in vivo. In this context, I have studied the role of two representative redox regulators, FexA, a homologue of Escherichia coli ArcA, and Fnr in the pathogenesis of V. vulniicusinfections. I also studied different iron transport systems in V. vulnificus.During my postdoctoral research, I expertised in functional genomics and molecular pathogenesis of V. vulnificus (gene knockout, gene complementation, in vivo and in vitro virulence studies,Transcriptome profiling and data analysis, Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and reportering etc..).  I also developed dynabeads enrichment method for the selective isolation of bacteria of interest.

Articles published in English Language Journals :   20

Book Chapters Published in English :   1

Editing or PEER Review Articles :   25