Phage for drug delivery vehicles.

Viruses being the natural carriers of gene have been widely used as drug delivery systems. However, the commonly used eukaryotic viruses such as adenoviruses, retroviruses, and lentiviruses, besides efficiently targeting the cells, can also stimulate immunological response or disrupt tumour suppressor genes leading to cancer. Consequently, there has been an increase interest in the scientific fraternity towards exploring other alternatives, which are safer and equally efficient for drug delivery.

From agro-industrial wastes to single cell oils: a step towards prospective biorefinery.

The reserves of fossil-based fuels, which currently seem sufficient to meet the global demands, is inevitably on the verge of exhaustion. Contemporary raw material for alternate fuel like biodiesel is usually edible plant commodity oils, whose increasing public consumption rate raises the need of finding a non-edible and fungible alternate oil source. In this quest, single cell oils (SCO) from oleaginous yeasts and fungi can provide a sustainable alternate of not only functional but also valuable (polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)-rich) lipids.

Design of a single chambered microbial electrolytic cell reactor for production of biohydrogen from rice straw hydrolysate.

Rice straw was pretreated using a microwave-assisted alkali pretreatment method. Cellulose recovery was approximately 82 %. This material was hydrolysed in an optimized enzymatic saccharification reaction using cellulase from Lysinibacillus sphaericus.

A two-step process for efficient enzymatic saccharification of rice straw.

Response surface methodology was used to optimise a two-step process of cellulase mediated saccharification of rice straw by an isolated bacterium Lysinibacillus sphaericus. CMC concentration, yeast extract, pH and incubation temperature were optimised for cellulase production using a central composite design and their optimum values were determined to be 4.3% (w/v), 2.

Design of a microbial fuel cell and its transition to microbial electrolytic cell for hydrogen production by electrohydrogenesis.

Anaerobic bacteria were isolated from industrial wastewater and soil samples and tested for exoelectrogenic activity by current production in double chambered microbial fuel cell (MFC), which was further transitioned into a single chambered microbial electrolytic cell to test hydrogen production by electrohydrogenesis. Of all the cultures, the isolate from industrial water sample showed the maximum values for current = 0.161 mA, current density = 108.