Dr. Ravindra Pal Singh, PhD

About

Following my PhD in Life Science at CSIR-Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute, I worked as a postdoc at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK, before returning to India to take up a Ramanujan Fellowship and later a Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship at the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute. I aim to address industrial challenges through my research in the area of host- microbial interactions, and am interested in the interface between biology and chemistry over several years. I currently focus in the areas of prebiotics and probiotics, and define their integrated interactions of host- microbial associations through various techniques. Current projects are:

• Exploring prophylatic activities of diverse structural pectin oligosaccharides: a step towards nutrigenomics. (12/2021 – Present) Funded by DBT- India. Approved grant: ₹ 32,00,240. (Role-PI).
• Novel enzymatic strategy for synthesizing human milk oligosaccharides for promoting health of infants. (12/2020 – Present) Funded by DBT- India. Approved grant: ₹ 43,50,000. (Role-PI).
• Prophylactic health products from macroalgae and their digestion by human gut microbial communities. (06/2019 – Present) Funded by DBT- India. Approved grant: ₹ 114,10,000. (Role-PI).

Honours and Awards

• 2018 Prestigious Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship Award sponsored by DBT, Govt. of India.
• 2018 Prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship Award sponsored by DST-SERB, Govt. of India.
• 2017 Travel grant (£200) for attending event on Algal Polysaccharides at IBCarb, Edinburgh, UK.
• 2016 Best oral presentation award in Applied Bioscience theme in a National conference held at Mohanlal Sukhadia University Udaipur in March 18th- 19th,.
• 2015 Dr. D. S. Kothari Postdoctoral Fellowship Award sponsored by UGC.
• 2013 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellowship Award was sponsored by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan.
• 2013 Outstanding PBC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award, Israel in (Not availed).
• 2013 The Zuckerman Postdoctoral Fellowship Award at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel (Not availed).
• 2013 Outstanding Tel Aviv University Postdoctoral Fellowship Award was sponsored by Tel Aviv University, Israel.
• 2011 Senior Research Fellowship Award, sponsored by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India.
• 2008 Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering award in the subject of life science provided by Ministry of human resource development, Government of India. (All India Rank 197).

Research Group Overview

My group works on interdisciplinary science that involves areas of human gut glycobiology and discovery of novel drugs from marine sources. Much impact of my group in this field has been based on integrative and hypothesis-driven approaches employing multidisciplinary techniques belonging to analytical chemistry, microbiology, molecular biology and biotechnology. Broadly, this fits into two categories:

• Glycobiology, gut microbiota and human health
  • Our gut harbours several hundred billion microorganisms that display several beneficial roles including but not limited to earlier development of the immune and microbiome systems, maintain structural integrity of the gut mucosal barrier and check on incidence of any gastrointestinal disorders. We learnt that any disturbances in the gut microbiota by long or short-term escort to dysbiosis conditions. Such microbial imbalance can end up with either obesity or other several gut-associated diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases, colon cancer and irritable bowel syndrome. Dietary fibers are primary energy source for these communities and understanding their molecular mechanism for digesting dietary fibers will pave the way to cure disturbed gut. We are currently dissecting molecular mechanisms of human gut beneficial bacteria (Bacteroides, Bifidobacteria, Lactobacillus and Blautia) for utilizing various β- glucans obtained from algae, yeast and staple crops. Some related publications are:
• Drug from marine source
  • Antibiotics are generally used to cure several diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria that kill them. However, excessive and indiscriminate usage of antibiotics has led to development of multiple drug-resistant bacterial strains which cause crisis not only in clinical sites but also in agricultural fields and natural environments. Such scenarios place a great burden on scientists to find more robust antibiotics and alternative ways to tackle them. My group identifies natural compounds from marine sources through metabolomic approaches, and develops rational design- based mimetic compounds to block the bacterial communication system.

Publications

• Singh, R. P.,* Bhaiyya, R., Thakur, R., Niharika, J., Singh, C., Latousakis, D., Saalbach, G., Nepogodiev, S.A., Singh, P., Sharma, S.C., Sengupta, S., Juge, N., Field, R. A.* (2022). Biochemical basis of xylooligosaccharides utilisation by gut beneficial bacteria. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 23(6): 2992. (IF 6.0).
• Singh, R. P.,* Niharika, J., Kondepudi, K. K., Bishnoi, M., Tingirikari, J. M. R. (2022) Recent understanding of human milk oligosaccharides in establishing infant gut microbiome and roles in immune system. Food Research International. 151: 110884. (IF 6.5)
• Singh, R. P.,* Bhaiyya, R., Khandare, K., Tingirikari, J. M. R. (2021). Macroalgal dietary glycans: potential source for human gut bacteria and enhancing immune system for better health. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. 16: 1-22. (IF 11.2).
• Singh, R. P.,* Rajarammohan, S., Thakur, R., Hassan, M. (2020) Linear and branched β- Glucans degrading enzymes from versatile Bacteroides uniformis JCM 13288T and their roles in cooperation with gut bacteria. Gut Microbes. 12(1): 1-18. (IF 10.3).
• Singh, R. P.,* Prakash, S., Bhatia, R., Negi. M., Singh, J., Bishnoi, M., Kondepudi, K. K. (2020). Generation of structurally diverse pectin oligosaccharides having prebiotic attributes. Food Hydrocolloids. 108: 105988. (IF 9.3).