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Microbiology videos

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Welcoming introducttion to Biobattalion webinar featuring Dr Zachary Arden entitled How can life evolve new genes? Photo of focused Dr Zachary and Biobattalion logo are placed next to each other.

BioBattalion webinar 7

Dr. Zachary Ardern, Postdoctoral Fellow, at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK delivered an exciting talk on, ‘How can life evolve new genes?’. In his talk, he highlighted the importance of overlapping genes and short genes like ORFs (Open Reading Frames) in microbial genomes. He explained the so-called ORFan genes which are found only in a small group of species or in one genome. He also pointed out the overlapping genes present in the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discussed its strong selection and the dynamic evolution of novel overlapping genes which act as a factor in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

He briefly talked about different models of gene origins and tools like RNA profiling, comparative genomics, evolutionary sequence analysis, etc. He introduced a tool, ‘OLGenie’ which detects overlapping genes by analysing excess constraints. Looking at genotype-phenotype maps between single-stranded sequences and the fault in the structure is an important part of the whole region of de-novo origin. He focused on ORF3a overlapping genes in SARS-CoV-2 and on finding the correlation between different reading frames. He concluded his talk by supporting the highly dynamic behaviour of genomes over time and understanding how this happened is fundamental in biology.

BioBattalion Webinar Series Chapter 5 with Dr. Babak Momeni

Dr. Babak Momeni, Assistant Professor of Biology, Boston College, USA, delivered a very fascinating talk entitled ‘Harnessing microbial potentials: from protection against infections to food safety. Throughout two parts he explained the importance of studying the complexity of microbial interactions and their community structures.

In the first part, his lab employs a combination of theory and wet lab-driven approaches to answer the puzzling questions of how complex microbial interactions can be exploited to fend off the consequences of antimicrobial resistance and other infections. His lab studies the nasal microbiota trying to harness their potential in improving respiratory health. In the second part of the talk, he explained some of the efforts taken out in his lab to reduce the hazardous impact of aflatoxin on food safety.

BioBattalion Webinar Series Chapter 4 with Dr. Shikha Sharma

Dr. Shikha Sharma from the Project Scientist – I and the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi, India, delivered an exciting talk entitled ‘Bacterial Research in OMICS ERA’. In her talk, she walked us through different state-of-the-art innovations in the field of microbial research and their implications for human and plant health.

The talk gave importance to Next Generation Sequencing platforms to decipher the characteristics of biofilms or the oral microbiome.

Biobattalion Webinar Series Chapter 2 – Dr. Adarsh Dharan

Dr. Adarsh Dharan, Research Associate Professor, Loyola University Chicago, USA delivered an exciting talk titled; ‘Understanding HIV- 1 Nuclear Import’. He discussed the cytoplasmic trafficking and nuclear import of HIV-1 genomes during infection and several other factors associated with their entries into the nucleus by showing these nuclear import kinetics during infection in a number of cell lines.

He further explained that, unlike other previous studies, reverse transcription is not a process that is completed in the cytoplasm but still an ongoing process once the nuclear import is even done. He presented his study confirming the presence of assembled capsids inside the nucleus and also the functional role of these capsids there.

Inside out: Pathogen control by “No-self” treatment

DNA is known as the molecule that carries the instructions necessary for cell functioning and genetic inheritance. Recently, we discovered a new function for extracellular DNA: pathogen control. After fragmenting DNA into smaller molecules, they can inhibit specific species from a range of organisms. This video explains the background of the “No-self” treatment and how this treatment could help us in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

Bacteria killing each other

How bacteria kill each other?

To survive in the environment, bacteria sometimes need to kill other bacteria to get all the food and space. In this video, you will learn about a bow-and-arrow nanoweapon that bacteria use to shoot deadly arrows into other bacteria. Hopefully, one day we can use this weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.