Animal BioChemistry

Welcome to the Division of Animal Biochemistry!

The Division of Animal Biochemistry came in to being in September 1984 with the merger of the discipline of Animal Biochemistry of Dairy Chemistry Division and the Division of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. Research endeavours of the Division are presently directed towards development of probiotic foods, dairy nutraceuticals and their mechanism of action, validation of health benefit claims of Indian dairy products, characterization of genes related to fertility in buffalo, signal transduction mechanism in sperm functions, identification of fertility markers, and bioinformatics researches. The Division is headed by Head of Division. There are four Principal Scientist and five Senior Scientists. The Division is offering Masters and Doctoral degree courses in Animal Biochemistry. The Division has Central Instruments Room that houses expensive equipments and are available to all users. Small Animal House is Central facilities managed by Animal Biochemistry Division. The contributions of the Division have been amply recognized by three Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Memorial Awards, Dr. P. G. Nair Award, two Jawahar Lal Nehru Award, Young Scientist Award, IUIS/FIMSA Travel Bursary Award, Best publication award and several paper presentation awards. In addition Division has filed three patents and developed technologies for different types of probiotic dahi.

Dr. Suneel Kumar Onteru, HOD

The salient research achievements of the Division are: Validation of health-benefits of dairy ghee in attenuation of coronary heart diseases, G.I. tract and mammary cancer and improvement of immune system; Development of probiotic dahi (Acidophilus bifidus and Acidophilus casei) for combating coronary heart disease and colon cancer and improvement of immune system; Bioavailability of vitamins and minerals from dairy products; Characterization and sequencing of milk lysozyme and detection of sub-clinical mastitis; Levels of conjugated linoleic acid in milk products; Anti-aging attributes of an Ayurvedic preparation, Maharish Amrit Kalash; Immobilization of galactosidase and its application in production of low lactose milk; Characterization and regulation of a spectrum of 8 amino acid transport systems in mammary gland; Hormonal profile of reproductive phases of buffalo; Elucidation of biochemical changes in sperm maturation, capacitation, acrosome reaction and semen freezing; Expression and hormonal regulation of mRNAs encoding IGF and its receptor, IGFBPs, PAPP-A, TNF-? and aromatase during buffalo estrous cycle; SSCP analysis of CYP19 gene in anestrus buffaloes; Elucidation of transduction pathways (PI3K and MAPK) in cattle granulosa cells during in vitro steroidogenesis and apoptosis. Also, division has contributed to research on hybridomas, immunosuppressor proteins, and growth hormone receptor.The Division has received three Rafi Ahmed Kidwai awards given to Dr. N. C. Ganguli, Dr. S.R. Anand and Dr. R. S. Pandey for their pioneer work in the areas of male and female reproduction leading to understanding of biochemical processes in buffalo. Dr. V.K. Kansal has been honoured with Dr. P. G. Nair Award for outstanding work in dairying on characterization and regulation of amino acid transport systems at induction of lactation. Dr. (Mrs) P.R. Sinha begged 'VI Sukumar Basu Memorial Award' for her contribution to developing process for preparation of probiotic dahi. The Division has distinction of receiving two Jawahar Lal Nehru Award for the PhD students (Seema Mehta and S C Roy) who worked under the guidance of Dr. Y. S. Rajput and Dr. S. K. Atreja. Young Scientist Award and Best publication awards were conferred upon to Dr. Gautam Kaul and Dr. V. K. Kansal, respectively. Dr. Rajeev Kapila was awarded Life Fellow of the Academy of Environmental Biology, India. The Asian-Australian Association of Animal Production Societies c/o Korean Society of Animal Science & Technology awarded Dr. Dheer Singh 9th AJAS/CAPI Outstanding Research Award. Besides, more than 10 best poster/ oral presentation awards have been received for presenting work in scientific conferences.Dr. V.K. Kansal was invited to deliver a Plenary Lecture in “World Congress on Calcium and Vitamin D in Human Life” held in Rome, in 1996. He was also invited by International Dairy Federation to speak in 26 IDF World Dairy Congress held in Paris in 2002.

Three scientists (Dr. V. K. Kansal. Dr. G. Kaul and Dr. Dheer Singh) were awarded overseas post-doctoral fellowship from agencies Department of Science and Technology and Ministry of Education, Govt. of India. Another four scientists also received training abroad under different programmes for advancement in scientific knowledge in foreign countries. Ph.D. student, Miss Tulika, was awarded 'Commonwealth Split-site Scholarship tenable in the United Kingdom 2008' to work at Imperial College London.