A faculty member of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), in association with German researchers, has discovered a new protein in plants that will ‘improve the salt stress tolerance of crops.’
This will enable farm land with high salinity soil amenable to cultivation.
Dr Tariq Aftab, assistant Professor, Department of Botany, AMU, together with other collaborators from Germany, have identified a new protein and named it ‘HvHorcH’.
This protein plays an important role in conferring salt stress tolerance in barley plants. Salt stress tolerance of crop plants is a trait with increasing value for future food production.
According to an official release from AMU, the research work has been carried out at Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben, Germany during the assignment to Dr Aftab as visiting scientist.
After several years of further studies and repeat trials, the report has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Dr Aftab said that the identification of this protein will open new horizons in developing stress-resilient crop plants. “Global climate change, which is predicted to be accompanied by prolonged and intensified drought periods, is likely to aggravate this situation even further.
Intensified irrigation attempts to combat drought ultimately increase soil salinity and thus eventually impede farmland cultivation when salinity reaches threshold levels that can no longer be tolerated by crop plants.
“It is therefore an eminent goal for a global sustainable food supply to improve the salt stress tolerance of crop plants in order to push these thresholds of soil salinity upwards so that more farmland with high-salinity soil will still be amenable to agriculture,” he explained.
Fish, which usually was found on the table during the dinner or lunch of coastal people has now been presented in the form of a crispy eatable which can become a regular item along with tea. The fish chakkuli (chakli) made by four women has succeeded in winning over the hearts of the fish lovers.
Savitri H S, Shaheeda Begum, Naseema an Harishiya, members of Samagra Sanjeevini self-help group of Layila, Beltangady taluk, have sold about 45 kg fish chakkuli during the last 18 days. They sell four varieties of fish chakkuli, i.e. Palak, pepper, Khara and ordinary (saada). Shaheeda Begum and Naseema said they have prepared products like Koduble, Happalam, Sandige and other products by using fish.
Speaking to Daijiworld.com, Savithri said, “We underwent training from August 23 to 28 at Fisheries College. NABARD, Fisheries College, Bharathiya Vikas Trust, Manipal helped us a lot to take up the manufacturing of fish snacks. From September 1, we started with an investment of Rs 25,000. So far, in the last 22 days, we have prepared around 60 kg fish snacks.”
Savitri said that this value added product can be kept for 45 to 50 days and they do not spoil.
Customers who have purchased the fish snacks said that the chakkuli gives the taste of eating the fish itself.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / Daijiworld.com / Home> Top Stories / by Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (SP) / September 24th, 2021
Ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said has honoured Dr. M.I.H.Farooqi, with an award of US$ 25,000 (Rs 12 lakh) in appreciation of his books Plants of the Quran and Medicinal plants in the Traditions of Prophet Mohammad.
Both the books contain scientific descriptions of plants mentioned in the Qu’ran and Sunnah .
Dr. Farooqi is a well-known Lucknow-based plant chemist with more than 125 research papers to his credit, published in Indian and foreign journals.
He is also the author of several books and more than hundred articles in English, Hindi and Urdu on science subjects of common interest like environment, modern technology, medicinal plants, economic plants, Islamic science and Prophetic Medicine.
Plants of the Quran has been translated and published in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Kannada, Malayalam and Indonesian languages. Based on Quranic and Prophetic Plants, UNESCO has approved Multimillion Dollars Project of Quranic Botanical Gardens in the Gulf countries.
Works on the establishment of such gardens in Sharjah and Qatar have already started.
(Dr. MIH Farooqi may be contacted at mihfarooqi[@]gmail.com)
source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> News> Focus / by The Milli Gazette / March 26th, 2011
This is the eleventh part of the series called `Scientist Says’ where we bring for our readers the significant contributions of young scientists in various fields.
Dr. Mohammed Ataur Rahman completed his B.Sc (H) & M.Sc., chemistry from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in the year 2003-2008.
Dr. Rahman started his research journey in the year 2009 with Dr. Jhillu Singh Yadav ( Bhatnagar fellow and former Director of CSIR-IICT) group in Semiochemical division.
After completing his Ph.D in the year 2015 December, he joined as a Research Scientist in one of the pharmaceutical companies in Hyderabad. In the year 2016, he was conferred with Postdoctoral position in the group of Professor Andrew G. Myers, at CCB-department, Harvard University, Boston, USA. He worked with Professor Andrew G. Myers from August 2016 to July 2019. In the year 2019 September, he joined New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Professor Alan Richard Healy.
Currently, he is working on Asymmetric Synthesis and its application to synthesize Polyketide natural products. Dr. Rahman has published 15 research papers in reputed international scientific journals and he is sharing inventorship in three international patents.
He shares his significant research works with Rashida Bakaitof India Tomorrow. Here are the excerpts of the interview.
Q. Please briefly explain your research.
Ans. My scientific journey began at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad. At IICT, my initial research began with the development of eco-friendly cost-effective pest-control method to control the pests in the agricultural field as an alternate method of pest control. These eco-friendly pest-controlled method is called as “Pheromone Technology’’. The “Pheromones” are the mixture of chemicals which are released by the male insect to attract the female partner for mating. The whole idea for this technology was to mimic the exact blend ratio of the particular pheromone compound which is released by the male insect and replacing it with artificial pheromones. With the help of artificial pheromones, the female partner of the insect is attracted and is trapped by specially designed trappers. We have developed pheromones for different types of crops such as sugar cane, cardamom, coconut, brinjal, tomato, paddy, ground nuts, cotton etc. This technology is very popular among farmers in South India especially in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamilnadu and Kerala.
But my PhD topic was different from the above Pheromone work. I started my Ph.D, with Dr. Jhillu Singh Yadav, he was the former director of my institute, CSIR-IICT. The topic of my Ph.D was – total synthesis of biologically active natural products- especially macrolide natural product, which is a potent class of compound having several distinct biological activities such as anti-cancer, anti-biotics, anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressants etc. My research was focused on the discovery of new synthesis routes for macrolide anti-biotics. During my Ph.D. I have synthesized more than five different macrolide natural products which are quite useful entities for antibiotics, which can be further studied to find new drug candidates.
Q. What was the objective of your research on natural products?
Ans. The objective of my research was to learn the nature of macrolide natural product and its chemistry for the discovery of new class of compounds which can be a potential antibiotic. In the year 2016, I joined Professor Andrew G. Myers research group as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the department of chemistry and chemical biology, Harvard University. It helped me to learn more about the biological applications of macrolide. Professor Myers was working on discovery of new macrolide antibiotics, which would be effective against gram positive and gram-negative pathogens. As we all know that Azithromycin is the commercial antibiotics which is mostly used against gram-positive pathogens. The main drawback for the antibiotics is that the bacteria develop its resistant mechanism against the drugs. Therefore, we have to come up with a new drug candidate to kill the resistant bacteria. Keeping these things in mind Professor Myers have set up a Macrolide Pharmaceutical company to study & discover a new class of macrolide antibiotics which can be effective against gram-positive as well as gram-negative pathogens. In 2016, I joined as one of the members of forty scientists who are working on this project. In the span of eight years, the Myers group have synthesized approx. 2100 of new macrolides. Out of 2100 new macrolides, we were lucky to find 100 best drug candidates which successfully passed the phase II clinical trials. I have synthesized over 150 new analogues of macrolides and three compounds out of 150 analogues showed best results. There are five patents for this work and I am sharing inventorship in two patents.We are hoping that this will be the future antibiotics.
Q. When did you begin and complete your research on natural products?
Ans. I started my doctoral research on natural products in the year 2009. In 2011, I registered my Ph.D in AcSIR- Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research at CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad, under the supervision of Dr. Jhillu Singh Yadav. I completed my Ph.D degree in the year December 2015.
Q. Can you please list some of the findings of your research works?
Ans. The findings for both the research works are as below:
As we all know chemical pesticides used in agriculture are very toxic and are not ecofriendly as it kills all kinds of insects. Pesticides also contaminate the fruits and vegetables. Long term use of such chemical pesticides will make land infertile and make nitrogen fixation slow. Therefore, to overcome those environmental issues, the new Pheromone Technology is developed. Pheromone Technology is an ecofriendly method to trap the insects. It is insect specific therefore, it does not disturb those insects which are beneficial to plant for pollination such as honey bee, butterfly, etc. Therefore, with the help of this technology farmers are growing healthy crops in some parts of South India.
We all know currently, at least 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant diseases, including 230,000 people who die from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. More and more common diseases, including respiratory tract infections, sexually transmitted infections and urinary tract infections, are untreatable. Lifesaving medical procedures are becoming much riskier, and our food systems are increasingly precarious. Therefore, the newly discovered macrolide antibiotics will be a potential candidate to reduce the death rate due to multidrug-resistant organisms.
Q. What was the conclusion of your research on antibiotics?
Ans. The molecular mass of macrolide antibiotic “Azithromycin” is high, more than 650, therefore, it’s very hard for the molecule to penetrate the bacterial cell. The bacterial cell wall consists mainly of peptidoglycan (PG), a mesh of polysaccharide strands. Therefore, it’s very hard for Azithromycin to penetrate the bacterial cell to stop its protein synthesis. To overcome with these issues, we have synthesized new macrolide antibiotics with lower molecular mass by keeping intact its biological activity. The smaller molecular mass macrolide penetrates the bacterial cell and stops the protein synthesis there. Our newly discovered macrolide antibiotic worked successfully against the gram-negative and gram-positive pathogens. I hope that in future, the Macrolide Pharmaceuticals formulates its own molecules as new candidates of antibiotics which will work against the broad spectrum of resistant pathogens which are life threatening.
Q. Any scholarships or awards for your research?
Ans. I received funding from department of biotechnology, New Delhi, India for Ph.D (2009-2015) and Project Associateship. In 2016-2019, I was awarded scholarship from the Harvard University, Boston, USA. Currently, I am working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and I am receiving scholarship from New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Q. What challenges did you face?
Ans. Doctor of philosophy is a long process, it requires a lot of patience and motivation. This journey will never be smooth, we have to motivate ourselves by being positive. I started my research in natural product chemistry. Natural products are chiral molecules, their synthesis involved multiple steps and therefore, designing a synthetic route to achieve the target, selection of right reagent and condition for chiral functional group transformation is very important. In multi-step synthesis, designing a feasible synthetic route, choosing right condition, optimizing synthetic plan of each step with best knowledge of literature reports, revising the synthetic plan is very important. Sometimes, ideas would fail and new strategies needed to be designed to proceed and solve issues. Initially, I had a lot of failure reactions which demotivated me but “be positive’’ attitude helped me a lot to achieve my goals and I could finish more than five natural products’ synthesis during my Ph.D.
Q. How do you think your research works would be beneficial to the industry or society?
Ans. We all know chemistry exists everywhere, human life depends on chemistry. Chemistry has its own subclass organic, inorganic, material, polymer, agricultural, pharmaceuticals etc., each class of chemistry has its own importance for the society. Here, I am talking about my perspective of chemistry, organic chemistry and its synthesis. Organic synthesis has its own benefits for the society with its application ranging from pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, pheromone chemicals, pesticide industry, dyes, cosmetics, high energy material which are used in defence sector, making diagnostic tools for sugar monitoring, high technology materials used in mobiles, computer and sensors and in aerospace etc.
The pheromone technology is an ultimate application to control the pests in the agricultural field. It is a green technology, eco-friendly, cost-effective and most reliable. These technologies are widely used worldwide. The pheromone techniques are quite popular in the Europe and America.
The current development on macrolide antibiotics, by our team at Myers Lab in collaboration with Macrolide Pharmaceuticals, will help the society to manage the antibiotic crisis in the coming decade. As per my personal observation, after COVID-19, the next health crisis would be due to antibiotics, and this would be a result of the excessive misuse of antibiotics. It develops its own resistant mechanism and restrict the effectiveness of antibiotics.
Q. Any new research you are working on now? Ans. After completion of post-doctoral study from Harvard University, I joined New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Professor Alan Richard Healy, in the year 2019. My current research focuses on asymmetric synthesis and I am working on finding the new asymmetric methods for the carbon-carbon, carbon-nitrogen, carbon-oxygen and carbon-halogen bond formation. These methods and its synthetic tools will be used for the synthesis of polyketide such as macrolide natural product as a clinical candidate for antibiotics. Our main aim is to use our own developed chemistry and apply them for synthesis of polyketide natural product. After developing these methods, we will use our chemistry to automate the synthesis as the nature does, like biosynthetic pathways.
Q. How do you think your research can be carried forward? Ans. Organic synthesis is an art of science. It creates new materials. We all know chemistry exists everywhere, human life totally depends on chemistry. Chemistry has its own subclass and each class is very important for the society. Here, I am talking about Organic Chemistry and its synthesis. Organic synthesis in general has its own advantages for the society with its applications, ranging from pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, pheromone chemicals, pesticide industry, dyes, cosmetics, high energy materials which is used in defense sector, making diagnostic tools for sugar monitoring. My new finding of new class of macrolides can be studied further to address the real crisis of antibiotics in future.
Q. Please give few suggestions to the budding scientists.
Ans. Research is a continuous journey. We have to keep ourselves motivated to achieve goals and reach our destination. We have to be ready to accept the real scientific challenges and try to solve and address those issues. My advice to the young scientists is to be positive and keep learning new scientific techniques which will help answer problems. You have to read a lot and keep yourself updated with the current literature and findings. Do not be upset with the failures, as failures also teach you. All the best for the budding scientist.
source: http://www.indiatomorrow.net / India Tomorrow / Home> Education > Featured / by Rashida Bakait / June 09th, 2021
Aftab’s love for cows also made him relinquish his lucrative job in the gulf and brought him back to the country.
Dr Aftab Ahmed Khan with a calf.(HT Photo)
Aftab must be one those few people who gave up MBBS to study veterinary sciences. The decision was prompted by the death of his beloved calf that died due to want of treatment.
Aftab’s love for cows also made him relinquish his lucrative job in the gulf and brought him back to the country.
“I lost my calf, Ballu, in 1998. He suffered from anthrax and could not be treated in time as there was no vet in the area at that time,” recollects Dr Aftab Ahmed Khan.
Khan says that the incident affected him so much that he chose to become a veterinary doctor despite selected for a MBBS course in 1999.
Furthermore, Khan says that he inherited the love for cows and other animals from his mother. “My mother loved cows and other animals at our home and cared for them like her own children,” he says.
“It was her daily routine, after offering the fajr namaz (offered before dawn) she would feed cows and other animals. Even before having tea, she would give the animals water and fodder,” says the vet.
Khan too developed the habit of feeding Ballu gur (jaggery) and chapati before leaving for school.
A native of Jodhpur, Khan says that he gave up his jobs in Oman and UAE as he was asked to do ante-mortem duties there. “The duty was very distressing for me and filled me with remorse as I was certifying beef meat for human consumption,” says Khan.
He finally took a call and gave up the job and returned to India despite the fact that he was getting a monthly salary equivalent to over one lakh Indian rupees in the gulf.
Now, Khan is working with Tree of Life For Animals (TOLFA), an organisation in Kharekhari village in Ajmer, extending medical treatment and care to stray animals.
“Every day over 20 to 30 cows are brought here for various ailments,” said Khan. Last month, two cows were operated upon to extract polythene from their stomach, he added.
From a job involving certification of animals for slaughter, Khan now spends his day treating the animals, mostly cows, brought to TOLFA clinic every day.
urce: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Cities> Jaipur News / by Zakir Hussain, Ajmer, Hindustan Times / April 13th, 2017
Locals claim ‘Noorjahan’ mangoes are of Afghan origin and cultivated only in the Katthiwada region of Alirajpur district adjacent to the Gujarat border, approximately 250 km from Indore.
The ‘Noorjahan’ mango, cultivated in Madhya Pradesh’s Alirajpur district, is fetching a higher price this year thanks to the good yield and sheer size of the fruit compared with the last year.
The ‘Noorjahan’ mango is priced at Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 apiece this season, a farmer said on Sunday, adding unlike the last year, the yield of this variety of mangoes has been good this time due to favourable weather conditions.
Locals claim ‘Noorjahan’ mangoes are of Afghan origin and cultivated only in the Katthiwada region of Alirajpur district adjacent to the Gujarat border, approximately 250 km from Indore.
“The three Noojahan mango trees in my orchard have produced 250 mangoes. The fruit has been priced between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 per piece. Bookings have already been done for these mangoes,” Shivraj Singh Jadhav, a mango cultivator from Katthiwada, told PTI.
He said people who have booked ‘Noorjahan’ mangoes in advance include fruit lovers from Madhya Pradesh as well as neighbouring Gujarat.
“This time the weight of a Noorjahan mango is going to be between 2 kg to 3.5 kg,” Jadhav added.
Ishaq Mansoori, an expert in cultivating ‘Noorjahan’ mangoes in Katthiwada, said, “This time the crop of this variety has been good but the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the business”.
He said ‘Noorjahan’ trees could not flower properly due to unfavourable climatic conditions in 2020.
“In 2019, one mango of this variety weighed around 2.75 kg at an average and buyers paid as high as Rs 1,200 apiece for it,” he added.
The ‘Noorjahan’ variety produces fruits towards the beginning of June.
These trees start flowering in January- February.
A ‘Noorjahan’ mango can grow up to a foot long and its kernels weigh between 150 to 200 grams, local cultivators claimed.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Nation / by PTI / Indore – June 06th, 2021
