I had a brief stint at its precussor institution CSIR Centre for Biochemicals, just after i finished my Ph.D. and came back home in Delhi. I had some previous contact with its then Director, Dr. Joshi, becausae I had met him several times to get Cardiolipin, the phospolipid my Ph.D. work was concentrated around. Since it was located very close to my residence in the VP Chest institute, it was rather convenient. Dr. A. P. Joshi wanted me to teach his scientific staff the art of extracting phospholipids, which i had developed as a part of my research work, while i waited foe a postdoctoral position I was lookinfg forward to at NIH Bathesada to mature. Fortunately or unfortunately that was not to be the case, so i ended up developing a
new preparative method for isolation of cerebrosides from bovine brain with some help from K. K . Taneja, who was then aspiring for a Ph.D. degree. (He is by now a fairly senior scientist at IGIB now
). Professor Joshi did try to give me a scientist position in the Center but was not successful in doing so, any way that's another story.
I left the Centtre sometime in 1986 to try my luck with Professor K.V. Sane, who had a Unesco project fpr developing electronic instruments for chemistry education. I came to know the transformation of the Centre into IGIB through my contacts with Taneja, who had by then acquired a doctorate. Professor Brahmchari, who is now the Director General of CSIR, was the first director of IGIB. I have visited it several times and am indeed impressed with its infrastructure.
I would reccommend to any life science student of DU for a brief stint or a life long career option. Its area of research as is available on
its website is as follows:
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IGIB has transformed itself into one of the premier laboratories under CSIR, by carrying out path breaking Research & Development activities in various areas of modern biotechnology and biological sciences such as allergy and infectious diseases, molecular pathogenesis and recombinant DNA technology while focusing mainly on Genomics and Bio-informatics. The research activities/projects of the Institute can be classified under the "Discovery Research" and "Collaborative Research".
The projects under the Discovery research i.e. the projects, which are assigned by CSIR, are either performed by the Institute or are executed under collaborative arrangement along with other constituent laboratories of CSIR. Besides this IGIB also Undertakes collaborative & sponsored research with various Government and non-Government institutions/companies, at a national level.
The Institute currently has eight main areas of research which are listed on the left side menu.
allergy and infectious disease:
The research studies in this area are mainly pursued in the respiratory disease segments such as Asthma, Tuberculosis and Aspergillosis (Fungal Infections of the lungs). Under these disease segments, research on molecular biology of the pathogens, molecular mechanism of host pathogen interaction; and differential gene expression profiling are carried out to predict genetic predisposition.
In the Allergy segment, IGIB conducts assessment of different kind of allergies including fungal allergies towards the development of therapeutic leads. In addition o this, significant amount of research in genetic studies of Asthma is pursued at IGIB. Another major focus is on "Development of protocols for assessment and evaluation of allergencity and toxicity of GM foods"
In the Infectious disease segment, IGIB is pursuing research to understand the role of the enzymes in the survival/virulence of M. tuberculosis. The IGIB scientific team working on infectious disease was successful in expressing mutants of protective antigens of recombinant vaccine for anthrax and these recombinant molecule finds it's application in the industries that are developing recombinant vaccine for anthrax.
The research activities currently being pursued by IGIB in this area are as follows:
◊ Appropriate Serum IgE testing to assess the potential allergenicity of new food proteins
◊ Allergenicity and Toxicity Assessment of Genetically modified foods : "DEVELOPMENT OF VIRUS RESISTANT TRANSGENIC CROPS"
◊ Anti-inflammatory and toxicity evaluation of choline in mouse model of asthma
◊ Studies on Aspergillus fumigatus proteome for identification of novel unknown immunogens
◊ Engineering peptides and protein for new generation therapies
◊ Identification and Validation of Drug targets for selected pathogens
◊ Studies on antiviral activity of compounds from plant's with special reference to dengue virus ..................................................more |
I believe that they must be takiong some undergraduate students for summer projects. It is worth exploring! It is located very close to the Viswavidyalya metro station
