Prof. Rup Lal

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Prof. Rup Lal

Prof. Rup Lal

INSA Senior Scientist, Acharya Narendra Dev College University of Delhi, New Delhi, 110019 ,

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    AWARD ON MICROBIAL DIVERSITY

    Prof. Rup Lal was awarded Prof. B.N. Johri Award on Microbial diversity (Biannual) by the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) for the year 2016.

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    AMI-Prof. S.R. Vyas Memorial Award (Biennial)

    Prof. Rup Lal was awarded Prof. S.R. Vyas Memorial Award (Biannual) by the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) for the year 2014.

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Bio

Born in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, on the 27th September 1953, Prof. Lal received his primary education at the Government High School, Bani, Himachal Pradesh, graduation from D.A.V College, Jalandhar, in 1973, M.Sc. from Kurukshetra University, in 1975 and Ph.D. from University of Delhi, Delhi (1980). His teaching career started as a lecturer in Zoology at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, in 1979. Further, he worked as an Alexander van Humboldt Fellow (PDF) from 1988-1990 in University of Bielefeld, Germany. He was a Professor of Molecular Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Delhi until September 2018. He is presently the INSA Senior Scientist at Acharya Narendra Dev College, Delhi University. Presently, he is also the Senior Ambassador of Indian region for ISME (International Society for Microbial Ecology), The Netherlands and Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS). He is also the Advisor to IMiLI-SAC (International Microbial Literacy Initiative-South Asia Center) to spearhead the microbial literacy campaign in India as well as Abroad. He has over 40 years of teaching, administrative and research experience in the area of microbial diversity, genomics and metagenomics. . He has extensively explored the molecular and genetic aspects of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) degradation, explored microbial diversity (published over more than 50 novel bacterial species), sequenced more than 30 bacterial genomes, carried out many comparative genomics and metagenome projects. His team has successfully generated cloning vectors systems and rifamycin analogues from genetic manipulation of polyketide gene cluster of Amycolatopsis mediterranei effective against MDR strains of tuberculosis. He has supervised 75 PhD thesis and trained more than 150 UG/PG students. He has over 250 publications in peer-reviewed journals with 9479 ISI citations & h-index 48. He has delivered more than 300 lectures in the area of Biotechnology, Microbiology, Genomics, and Metagenomics at various national and international platforms. Professor Lal is the recipient of several prestigious fellowships including the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany), DBT Overseas Fellowship and Indo-US-ASM Professorship in Microbiology, Endeavour executive fellowship (2018-2019), Moselio Schaechter Distinguished Service Award from American Society for Microbiology and many more. During the past more than a decade he is propagating microbial literacy among masses and even school children. He has also been actively involved in conducting several workshops across the country to train young students in the field of computational biology.

Administrative Positions

2007 - 2010 8 Nov - 7 Nov

Head of the Department, Department of Zoology

University of Delhi
2007 - 2010 8 Nov - 7 Nov

Dean, Faculty of Sciences,

University of Delhi
2012 - 2016 6 Nov - 28 May

Dean, Examination,

University of Delhi
2008 - 2010 31 July - 7 June

Chairman of Board of Research Studies,

University of Delhi
All Positions

Academic Positions

2022 - Present 27 Sep - Present

INSA-Senior Scientist,

Department of Zoology, University of Delhi, Delhi
2019 - 2022 22 July - 21 July

NASI-Senior Scientist Platinum Jubilee Fellow

The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi
2000 - 2018 13 Apr - 30 Sep

Professor

Department of Zoology, University of Delhi
1992 - 2000 13 Apr - Mar

Reader

University of Delhi
1979 - 1992 23 Jul - 12 Apr

Lecturer

Sri Venkateshwara College, University of Delhi

Honorary Positions

  • Advisor, International Microbiology Literacy Initiative Resources- South Asian Center (IMiLI-SAC) at Phixgen Private Ltd., Gurugram.
  • Senior Ambassador for India, Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS)
  • Senior Ambassador for India, International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME), The Netherlands
  • Adjunct Professor, Career Point University, Hamirpur.
  • Director (Honorary), PhiXgen Pvt. Ltd., Gurugram, Haryana.

Awards &  Honors

  • Awarded ISME Ambassador of the year 2021-2022 by ISME President Nicole Dubilier in 18th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (ISME18) held at EPFL, Lausanne from 14-19 August 2022.
  • Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) in February 2021.
  • President, Indian Network for Soil Contamination and Research (INSCR) (2018 - Present)
  • General Secretary, Indian Network for Soil Contamination and Research (INSCR) (2011-2018).
  • Awarded NASI-Senior Scientist Platinum Jubilee Fellowship, the National Academy of Science, India (2019-2022).
  • Received Kuldeep Dhatwalia Excellence Award-2017 from Chaman Seva Sansthan, Himachal Pradesh for exemplary work, achievements, commitment and contributions in the development of nation.
  • Received the Moselio Schaechter Distinguished Service Award-2016 from American Society for Microbiology for exemplary leadership and commitment towards the substantial furthering of the profession of microbiology in research, education or technology in the developing world.
  • Prof. B.N. Johri Award on Microbial Diversity (Biannual) by the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) for the year 2016.
  • Ambassador, Indian Ocean Region, American Society for Microbiology (ASM) (2012-2015).
  • President, Association of Microbiologists of India (2013-2014).
  • Prof. S.R. Vyas Memorial Award (Biannual) by the Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) for the year 2014.

Elected Fellow Of Academies

  • Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology (FAAM).
  • Fellow of Indian National Science Academy (FNA).
  • Fellow of National Academy of Science (FNASc).
  • Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (FNAAS).
  • Fellow of Academy of Microbiological Sciences (FAMSc).

Fellowships Awarded

  • Awarded INSA-DFG Bilateral Exchange Program – 2018 to visit Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Freiburg, Germany in June-July, 2019.
  • Awarded Endeavour Executive Fellowship by Government of Australia. To work at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia (November 2018 - February 2019).
  • Awarded short-term Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Worked at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Leipzig, Germany (June - July 2017 and May - July 2018).
  • Awarded short-term Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Worked at the University of Freiburg, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmaceutical Biology and Biotechnology, Germany (July - August 2013).
  • Awarded Indo-US professorship for the year 2008-09 by American Society for Microbiology to conduct research on “Genetic Manipulations of Amycolatopsis mediterranei S699 for the production of rifamycin analogs” at College of Pharmacy, Oregon State University, Corvallis (May - June 2009).
  • Awarded short-term Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Worked on the project entitled, “Annotation of genome of Amycolatopsis mediterranei S699” at the University of Bielefeld, Gentechnologie/Mikrobiologie, Germany (July, 2008).
  • Awarded short-term Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Worked on the project entitled “Genome sequence and analysis and annotations” at the University of Bielefeld, Gentechnologie/Mikrobiologie, Germany (June - July, 2004).
  • Awarded DBT short-term Overseas Associateship to work with Prof. John Cullum at the Department of Genetics, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany (May - October, 2000).
  • Awarded short-term Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Worked on the project, “Cloning of Rifamycin bio¬synthetic genes in Amycolatopsis mediterranei” at the University of Bielefeld, Gentechnologie/Mikrobiologie, Germany (May - July, 1995).
  • Awarded Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship. Worked at the University of Bielefeld, Gentechnologie/Mikrobiologie, Germany (July, 1988 - August, 1990).

Patent

  • Lal, R. (1999) Cloning vector and a process for the preparation thereof. US patent No 005985560A page 1-25.
    • This invention relates to a method for the preparation of a series of cloning vectors and such cloning vectors prepared there form. The method consists of digestion of pRL derivative with a restriction enzyme Bam HI and digestion of pIJ4026 by Bgl II and electoeluting the ermE gene. The linear DNA having pRL1 derivative was ligated with ermE gene and then transformed into E.coli GM2163. The transformants were screened for the presence of concatamers and the concatamers of pRL80 DNA were isolated from E.coli . The transformants were selected under appropriate antibiotics selection pressure. 
  • Lal, R and Mahmud, T. Antibacterial compounds against drug resistant bacteria. PCT/IB2014/059989 in China and Russia (Under Process).

Achievements

Genomics and Metagenomics

As a part of his research work, he has been successful in sequencing and annotating 18 genomes so far with varied niches such as Manikaran Hot water spring and HCH Dumspsite at Lucknow.

He has been instrumental in sequencing and analyzing metagenomes as well, from stressed niches such as, HCH dumpsite and publishing 2 major studies:
  1. Sangwan et al., 2012. Comparative Metagenomic analysis of soil microbial communities across three Hexachlorocyclohexane contamination levels. PLos One . 
    http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0046219
  2. Sangwan et al., 2014. Reconstructing an ancestral genotype of two hexachlorocyclohexane degrading Sphingobium species using metagenomic sequence data.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24030592 He has also been pivotol in performing the comparative genomic studies as well as pan-genomics across HCH contaminated soils.
  3. Verma H., Kumar R., Oldach P., Sangwan N., Khurana J.P., Gilbert J.A., Lal R . 2014. Comparative genomic analysis of nine Sphingobium strains: Insights into their Evolution and Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) Degradation Pathway.
    http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/15/1014
  4. Sharma A., Sangwan N., Negi V., Kohli P., Rao D.L.N., Lal R . 2015. Pan-genome dynamics of Pseudomonas gene complements across hexachlorocyclohexane dumpsite.
    http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/16/313.
  5. Sangwan N., Lambert C., Sharma A., Gupta V., Khurana P., Khurana J.P., Sockett R.E., Gilbert J.A., Lal R . Arsenic rich Himalayan hot spring metagenomics reveals genetically novel predator-prey genotypes. Environ. Microbiol. Reports DOI: 10.1111/1758-2229.12297.
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-2229.12297/abstract;jsessionid=A06D0DFD46F2434D496BFC3F85CFB92E.f01t01

Fight against Tuberculosis 

He also has one patent to his credit for designing new analog for Rifamycin (wonder drug) against Tuberculosis. He has immensely contributed in this field and published many studies.

Nigam, A., Almabruk, K. H., Saxena, A., Yang, J., Mukherjee, U., Kaur, H., Kohli, P., Kumari, R., Singh, P., Zakharov, L. N., Singh, Y., Mahmud, T., and Lal, R. 2014. Modification of Rifamycin Polyketide Backbone Leads to Improved Drug Activity Against Rifampicin-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis. J Biochem. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M114.572636.
http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2014/06/12/jbc.M114.572636.abstract Recent article in Times of India:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/DU-scientists-find-cure-for-drug-proof-TB/articleshow/37874856.cms

Taxonomic Characterization of Novel Species/Strain

In his ongoing effort to identify the culturable from extreme environment especially the hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) dump site, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in North India, his lab has characterized over 30 novel species using polyphasic approach. The species belong to different genera like Sphingomonas, Sphingobium, Novosphingobium, Sphingopyxis, Rhizobium, Devosia, Pontibacter etc. and are described in International Journal of Systemic and Evolutionary Microbiology For details, please see the Tab "Research".

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