Research Projects

The research and development in the field of biotechnology in North-East India is still in the early stage. Among many drawbacks, the lack of proper infrastructure and unavailability of trained manpower are the most important factors. The ecological importance of this region at the global stage can be vouched from the fact that the region lies within the Indo-Burma mega-diversity hotspot. In South Asian Institute of Rural and Agricultural Management (SAIRAM), Manipur, the Department of Biotech. have initiated the preliminary studies on the traditional medicinal uses of freshwater gastropods of the region through the intervention of biotechnological omics approach. Bioactive compounds from gastropods has potential application in therapeutics and pharmaceutical development. Besides therapeutic and pharmaceutical products, there are also important nutraceuticals or natural health products from gastropods. It can serves as an important source of nutrients in many peoples diet as it also serves as delicacy in northeast India, with high protein content and essential amino acids. The gastropods shells, meat and opercula were mainly used in traditional medicine and perfumery. However, very few studies have only conducted on the preliminary proximate composition profile of gastropod resources of northeast India. Freshwater gastropod were also used in traditional medicine to fasten the chicken pox recovery and the ashes of burnt shells were used for wound healing. However, the uses of freshwater gastropod for treating various medicinal conditions are not scientifically substantiated till date and the studies of bioactive compounds are very limited. In order to bridge the growing future demand and diminishing supply of food, there is in need to assess the potential for functional food development from underutilised nutritious food. Transcriptome profiling studies of freshwater gastropods are very limited. Therefore, generation of the full transcriptome of freshwater gastropods will help to identify expressed biosynthetic genes potentially involved in bioactive compound production. The microbial symbionts of freshwater gastropods were reported to be a promising source of medicinally important bioactive compounds. Identification of bacteria involved in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites can provide options for supplying sufficient quantities for clinical testing and commercialization. Hence, microbial symbionts associated with the gastropods may provide an alternative for producing compounds of biomedical importance on a larger scale for drug development. In this work, scientific substantiation of the bioactive compounds in freshwater gastropod and understanding its biosynthetic origin through the application of omics approach will be undertaken.