Participant 14. National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Dona Paula, Goa, India

The National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), a constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India was founded in 1966. It is a unique institution among the countries bordering the Indian Ocean carrying out ocean research. It has its headquarters at Goa and regional centers at Mumbai, Kochi and Vishakapatnam. NIO has a staff of about 500, of whom 200 are scientists. NIO has laboratories for oceanographic research, well-equipped library and a coastal research vessel which is equipped for coastal studies. The Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory of the National Institute of Oceanography has an ongoing program on “Bioactive substances from marine environment”. Under this program, therapeutic potential of several isolated and identified compounds have been explored and there are hopes of few of the lead compounds identified reaching the drug stage. This laboratory uses the latest state-of-art technology in the field of natural product research. It also has modern sophisticated instruments like FTIR, NMR, UPLC, LC/MS/MS and GC/MS for structural elucidation.   More information: www.nio.org

Role in the project

• Mass production of cultures to provide sufficient biomass for the isolation of biomass (WP1)
• Collection of marine organisms (WP1)
• Extraction and fractionation of the collected/cultivated marine organisms (WP2)
• Isolation, purification and chemical characterisation of bioactive compounds (WP2)
• Antimicrobial and antifouling screening of fractions and isolated compounds (WP3)

Dr. Narsinh L. Thakur, Ph.D.

Scientist

Bioorganic Chemistry

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Expertise: Dr. Thakur has more than 16 years of research experience in the field of marine chemical ecology and biotechnology. His research has focused on interactive studies between chemical ecology and drug discovery. He is keen in applying different molecular biological tools in the discovery of marine natural products. He has more than 25 publications and 2 patents to his credit.

Dr. Prabha Devi, Ph.D. (Marine Sciences)

Bioorganic Chemistry

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Expertise: Collection of marine invertebrate organisms.  Isolation of associated marine microbes.  Biological screening of marine samples with special reference to antifouling activities.  Chemical isolation and purification of compounds.

Dr. Supriya Shet Tilvi, Ph.D. (Chemistry)

Scientist C

Bioorganic Chemistry

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Expertise: Her research focuses on discovery of bioactive molecules from marine organisms, including isolation and characterization of natural products using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques.