During 11th five year period this group is in the process of developing 350 bar pressure rated high pressure retainable water sampler, high pressure low temperature serial dilution and fermentor system. Using this experience it is proposed to design 600 bar pressure rated instruments to explore deep sea microbes
Metagenomic technology tries to overcome this bottleneck by the development and utilization of culture independent approaches. In metagenomics the power of genomic analysis (the entire DNA in an organism) is applied to entire communities of microbes, bypassing the need to isolate and culture individual microbial species and thus provides a relatively unbiased sampling of a vast untapped genetic diversity that is present in various microenvironments. An additional advantage is that the genes that encode biosynthesis of product of interest can be isolated and analyzed using bioinformatics tools.
The proposed research will provide descriptive information about the diversity of organisms in an extreme environmental condition (deep sea) with great through put to utilize even uncultivable microbes for various novel and useful products discovery. Isolation of barotolerant gene from deep sea samples will give a background idea for presence of such microbes in particular environmental niches and thus the same can be used as supporting information for isolating microbes (cultivable if any) from same environmental niches.
A few major challenges confronting the algal nutraceutical industry are the mass production of marine microalgae including the search for an ideal microalgal species, determining less energy intensive methods for the extraction of products from microalgae and reducing the high unit cost of biomass production from microalgae. Hence this project will aim to rectify these problems for the production of omega three fatty acids and astaxanthin from marine algae. Similarly, availability of resources for biocrude and bioplastics in marine environment, especially from macroalgae is not explored fully.
Meeting Ballast water performance of IMO standards will require development of suitable technologies to evaluate it according to the criteria prescribed by the IMO. Such verification facilities are very much in demand in India.
National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai
Though considerable progress is achieved in fulfilling the objectives of the 11th plan some of the objectives are yet to be achieved. It is proposed to continue the project in the 12th Plan to complete the following tasks.
This program will be implemented by NIOT through the scientific and technical staff in collaboration with other institutes such as CMLRE, NCPOR, IIT, etc.
This group would require the following facilities:
(Rs. In crores)
Name of the Scheme | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Marine Bio-technology | 31 | 28 | 23 | 13 | 10 | 105 |
Last Updated On 08/14/2018 - 12:07 |