Central Research Laboratory - Basic and Applied Sciences

This is an interdisciplinary laboratory which is working in various research areas in biological sciences including biotechnology and molecular biology. Students can pursue M.Sc. by research and Ph.D. in Zoology through the laboratory. We are planning to get recognition for the laboratory in Applied Biology.

Our research is funded through grants from private trusts and Government of India bodies such as Department of Ocean Development (DOD), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and University Grants Commission (UGC). We also provide consultancy services for Environment Impact Assessments (EIA), biodiversity and biomedical research. We also provide short-term training in micro-technique, animal tissue culture and microbiology techniques. Further we are also planning to start with short term techniques in Molecular Biology. We have been working on two important areas of research in biotechnology and biological sciences.

Our principal research work is in the area of Marine Biotechnology. We started with Marine biotechnology research as a small group of M.Sc. students and one Lecturer from the College in 1990. We are now recognized as one of the foremost group of researchers actively involved in the field of marine Biotechnology in India as well as abroad.

In marine biotechnology, our interest is in marine bioactive compounds and harnessing biofuels from marine sources. The laboratory has well-equipped animal tissue culture facility which is a feather in our cap. Antibacterial, immunomodulatory, cytotoxicity and anti-oxidant activity are some of the ongoing activities in our laboratory. We also work on mechanism of action of marine and herbal bioactive compound on osteoporosis, process of angiogenesis and tubulin binding capacity.

We are also working on a project to study the potential of extracting biofuel from a novel marine micro-alga. It has been deposited in NCBI gene bank with accession number KR871012. The Laboratory has successfully established and standardized a lab-scale micro-alga culture yielding promising amounts of total lipids. Our future work on KR871012 is to establish it as new species and to standardize the technology for large scale culture set up.

In our second priority area of research, ecology and biodiversity, some students are working on biodiversity studies of spiders, butterflies and birds. Under chemical ecology, a doctoral student is working on pheromones of lepidopteran butterfly and its behavioral aspect. Another student is working on taxonomy and biodiversity of foraminifera, a group of marine protozoans.

The lab is self-sufficient and the revenue generated through consultancy and workshops is utilized for purchasing chemicals, glassware and maintenance of equipments. The entire work of washing, cleaning of glassware, cleanliness of laboratory and most importantly; the sterile condition of Animal Tissue Culture Laboratory and it is maintained by students. The good practices in the laboratory are as follows:

• Journal club – every week one student makes a presentation on a recently published paper from a good impact factor journal related to his/her research topic.
• Every month students report the work.
• Students co-operate in their experimental work resulting in a healthy and cordial environment in the laboratory.
• Research students keep records of all registers.
• Students keep account of finances.
• Students are trained to write projects and their budgets.