Applications of Metagenomics

Prof. H.N Thatoi is serving as the Director of Center for Industrial Biotechnology Research (CIBR) at Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) University. Prior to that he served as a Professor in the Department of Biotechnology of Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo University. He has obtained his MSc, MPhil, and PhD in Botany from Utkal University. His major research interests and areas include sustainable production of renewable energy, mushroom diversity and bioactivity, Bioremediation, Structural and Computational biology, Nanotechnology, etc. To date, he is credited with the publication of 25 books and more than 326 research papers in national and international journals, proceedings of conferences and book chapters, and has been awarded with two patents. He serves as member of several scientific societies and editorial boards of reputable national and international journals. Dr. Thatoi is a Functional Area Expert in Ecology and Biodiversity and is accredited by QCI, NABET, MoEF, Govt. of India. Dr. Sukanta K. Pradhan is serving as HOD in the Department of Bioinformatics of Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT). He obtained his B.Sc(Ag) and M.Sc(Bioinformatics) from OUAT and Ph.D (Biotechnology) from Ravenshaw University. He is also working as the Director, OUAT Data Centre. The teaching and research interest of Dr. Pradhan includes Genomics, Metagenomics, Transcriptomics, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology, and Microbiology. He has successfully implemented several research projects funded by DBT Govt. of India, RKVY Govt. of Odisha, DST Govt. of Odisha. Till date, Dr. Pradhan is credited with publication of 58 research papers in reputed national and international journals and 8 book chapters. He serves as member of several scientific societies of national repute. So far, he has guided 01 Ph.D. scholar and 53 M.Sc students for their thesis and dissertation works. He has visited USA and Bangkok to attend International Conferences on Computational Biology. Dr. Upendra Kumar is working as Senior Scientist at ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack (Odisha), India. Meanwhile, he has served as Visiting Scientist at CSIRO, Adelaide, Australia twice (2016 & 2023). His research work is a blend of basic and applied nature, covering major aspects of Microbiology in relation to plant and soil health. Till date he has led several internal and external projects granted by ICAR, RKVY, DST, DBT, NASF etc. with funding amount of more than 15 Cr. He has more than 17 years experience in rice research and published more than 509 articles (journals, books, book chapters, technology bulletins, popular articles, e-publications etc) and also guided more than 15 MSc and PhD students. The cumulative impact factor of his publication is about 267. He has also developed more than 12 technology/product like liquid and carrier-based rice-specific bioinoculants for nutrient, pest and microbial decomposition of rice straw. He has also developed the Azolla-based biofertilizer (sporocarp), livestock feed and microbial-growth medium. He has also constructed liquid biofertilizer production unit at NRRI, Cuttack for the first time. He has developed csaXpert mobile app and characterized the microbial resources in relation to nitrogen fixation, nitrification and denitrification under varying nutrient and climatic conditions in rice-based cropping systems and deposited these microbial cultures in authentic repositories. Through these works, he has been conferred with the Edita David Memorial-2014 (AZRA, Bhubaneswar), Best Scientist Award Twice from ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack (2017 & 2023), AZRA Fellow-2018, Lal Bahadur Shastri Outstanding Young Scientist Award 2020 (ICAR, New Delhi), Nanaji Deshmukh ICAR Award for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Team Research in Agriculture and allied Sciences-2020 (ICAR, New Delhi) and Fellow of Association of Rice Research Workers (ARRW)-2020, SCON recognition Award-2021 and Young Scientist Awards Twice (GAP, 2018 & AZRA, 2022).

Part 1. Introduction
1. Metagenomic: Paradigm shift in microbiology
2. Next-Generation sequencing techniques and its application in metagenomics study
3. Global metagenomic sequencing platforms and marketing
4. Bioinformatics methods in metagenomics
5. Metagenomic and Bioinformatics in microbial ecology: current status and beyond
6. Me Metagenome, metatranscriptome, and metaproteome approaches to unravel microbial communities structure and function

Part 2. Agriculture
7. Impact of long-term agricultural management practices on the rhizosphere microbiome and its impact on plant health
8. Long-term application of compost influences soil and root microbial communities under diverse rice-based cropping systems
9. Assessment of mycorrhizal symbionts on soil organic matter dynamics through metaomics approach
10. Role of metagenomics and metabolomics in exploring the soil microbiota for Sustainable agriculture
11. Effect of long-term application of biosolids on soil physico-chemical and biological properties
12. Plant microbiome: Trends and prospects for sustainable agriculture management
13. Microbial diversity of rhizosphere of the Himalayan plants
14. Rhizosphere microbiome diversity of different food crops
15. AM fungal diversity in rice-based cropping system and its impact on soil health

Part 3. Environment
16. Bio-prospecting of hot spring metagenome and its industrial application
17. Microbial diversity in Ganga river and its impact on fish population
18. Microbial biodiversity in brackish water ecosystem in Eastern India: The Chilika lake
19. Microbial biodiversity in mangrove forest environment
20. Role of microbial- metagenomics potential in bioremediation
21. Assessment of metagenomics-based microbial diversity in mine ecology

Part 4. Health
22. The role of metagenomics in understanding the human microbiome and its relation with medicine
23. Rapid metagenomic identification of pathogens in clinical samples by real-time nanopore sequencing analysis
24. Microbial diversity and their impact on human health
25. Gut microbiota modulation and its relationship with obesity
26. Metagenomic and prebiotic
27. A metagenomic approach to characterize disease epidemiology: A COVID0/-19 pandemic perspective
28. SARS-CoV-2 faecal viral activity in association with gut microbiota composition in patients with COVID-19
29. Wild animals microbiome and its implication in conservation biology 30 Assessment of farm animals microbiome for improvement of health