Dr. Sangram Lenka, PhD

About

I obtained my Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. I am a recipient of the ISCA-National Young Scientist award in Plant Science. I completed my postdoctoral training at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. I am a recipient of the Israel Govt. postdoctoral fellowship where I worked on grape cell metabolic engineering. I have also worked at Reliance Industries Limited a Fortune Global 500 Company as a team lead. Before joining GBU, I was an Associate fellow TERI, New Delhi and an Honorary Fellow in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment at Deakin University, Australia.

Background

• 2010 Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi

Honours and Awards

• 2017-20 Honorary Fellow, the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment at Deakin University, Australia
• 2015-17 Recipient of the Israeli Govt. postdoctoral fellowship
• 2010 Recipient of the ISCA-National Young Scientist award in Plant Science.
• 2004 NET-JRF from University Grant Commission (UGC)
• 2002 NET-JRF from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Research Group Overview

• My current research interest at GBU employs chloroplast synthetic biology, plant metabolic engineering, CRISPR mediated high-throughput genome editing for climate resilience, crop quality traits, high-value nutraceuticals, flavour and bioactive compounds, novel application of nano- materials in plants and light-metabolite nexus.

Publications

• Arya, S.S., Rookes, J.E., Cahill, D.M. and Lenka, S.K# (2022) Chitosan nanoparticles and their combination with methyl jasmonate for the elicitation of phenolics and flavonoids in plant cell suspension cultures. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules,
  doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.06.145
• Shankar, U., Lenka, S. K#., Ackland, M. L., & Callahan, D. L. (2022). Review of the structures and functions of algal photoreceptors to optimize bioproduct production with novel bioreactor designs for strain improvement. Biotechnology and Bioengineering,
  doi.org/10.1002/bit.28116
• Arya, S.S., Mahto, B.K., Sengar, M.S., Rookes, J.E., Cahill, D.M. and Lenka, S.K#., 2022. Metabolic Engineering of Rice Cells with Vanillin Synthase Gene (VpVAN) to Produce Vanillin. Molecular Biotechnology,
  doi.org/10.1007/s12033-022-00470-8
• Tanwar, N., Arya, S.S., Rookes, J.E., Cahill, D.M. , Lenka, S.K# and Bansal, K, C ., 2022. Prospects of chloroplast metabolic engineering for developing nutrient-dense food crops. Critical Reviews in Biotechnology,
  doi.org/10.1080/07388551.2022.2092717
• Wang, R., Lenka, S.K., Kumar, V., Sikron-Persi, N., Dynkin, I., Weiss, D., Perl, A., Fait, A. and Oren-Shamir, M., 2021. A synchronized increase of stilbenes and flavonoids in metabolically engineered Vitis vinifera cv. Gamay Red cell culture. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 69(28), pp.7922-7931
  doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.1c02119