"IBSD is working on developing genomic resources for microbes, medicinal plants of NER"

IMPHAL, Oct 4
Prof Pulok Kumar Mukherjee, Director, IBSD, has asserted that the Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD) is working on developing genomic resources for microbes and medicinal plants of North Eastern Region (NER).
He made the statement during a programme organised by IBSD on "Connecting genomics and transcriptomics for the development of bioresources" at Imphal today.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof Pulok Kumar said that IBSD is working on the genomics of bioresources to catalogue the rich and unique microbial diversity and medicinal plants of the region.
He asserted that IBSD has a huge repository of microbial cultures from unique biodiversity niches of NER which can be explored for biomanufacturing and development of bioeconomy.
Dr Sagar Sengupta, Director, National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, highlighted the importance of genomics to explore biodiversity of NER including microbes and medicinal plants.
"IBSD and NIBMG can collaborate for metagenome sequencing and analysis of selected microbes", said Dr Sagar while assuring full support from NIBMG for the training and development of human resources for data analysis.
Prof Indrajit Dube, Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Shillong highlighted various areas of collaboration with IBSD for documentation of traditional knowledge and bioresources for sustainable development.
He mentioned that legal research must be integrated with bioresources from regulatory perspectives for the development of bioeconomy.
Notably, IBSD is only the institute in the ambit of BRIC under Department of Biotechnology, Government of India established in NER which is working on documentation of bioresources and integrated study for their scientific validation, value addition to propel innovations, discoveries and inventions for catalysing the growth of industry in the region for livelihood generation and boosting bioeconomy with different perspectives.
IBSD is exploring microbial resources from different ecological niches of NER namely cave ecosystem, forest ecosystem, fermented food, endophytes, hot-spring, cold spring, limestone deposits, high altitude ecosystems and preserved at the microbial repository centre of IBSD, Imphal.
IBSD is also exploring wild edible mushrooms of NER for nutraceutical potential and AMR study. IBSD has documented a large number of indigenous traditional knowledge associated with traditional fermented foods of NER. IBSD has developed a starter culture consortium and controlled fermentation process for safe, quality, and healthy products.