Interview Questions asked in Biotech Companies & Institutes Part 2

1. what is the difference between defined, characterised and standard serum? (JNU)
2. what is the difference between fermentor and bioreactor? (TITAN BIOTECH)
3. what is regenrative medicine?
4. Why is the RBC called as a cell even though it dont have all the characteristic features of a complete cell?
5. what are the shine-dalgarno sequences in organism other than E.coli.?
6. why life span of RBC IS GREATER THEN THE WBC?
7. Dubai is desert how it is possible it is becaming greenary
8. Size of Normal Land and bhosada
9. L-Tryptophan produced by a genetically modified bacteria caused many illnesses and deaths. Does this not prove that genetic modification can result in the production of toxic substances?
    

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Some Interview questions asked in Biotech Companies & Institutes

1. wat is the composition of glutathione? (BIOCON)
2. how much vol of sample u've 2 take to make 6mM solution.. if the Molr Wt is 164? (BIOCON)
3. Explain Gram Staining method?(BIOCON)
4. if protein in unknown solution,how will you determine it is protein?(IIT)
5. For which purpose Immunoblotting technique is used?(Biological.e.limited)
6. The absorbance of protein at 280 nm is due to which amino acid?(IGCAR)
7. The number of chromosomes in the triploid variety of a plant is 72...what is the number of chromosomes in a diploid genome of the same plant?? (IGCAR)
8. Who is the real father of biotechnology?

You all can also post the questions which you encountered in your interview

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New technique uncovers hidden insecticide resistance

A new technique pioneered at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) is improving the detection and monitoring of insecticide resistance in field populations of an important malaria-carrying mosquito.

Researchers at LSTM, led by Dr Charles Wondji have developed a new technique which encourages the female Anopheles funestus mosquitoes to lay eggs which are then reared into adult mosquitoes to provide sufficient numbers to determine levels of insecticide resistance and to characterise the underlying mechanisms.

Explaining the significance, John Morgan, who designed the technique, said: "Malaria is the main cause of death in Uganda with some 12 million cases recorded annually. The Ministry of Health relies heavily on insecticide treated nets and spraying to control mosquitoes. The effectiveness of those control programmes depends on the ability to detect and monitor insecticide resistance. "

The An. funestus mosquito is difficult to collect and rear from the field and hence published studies of insecticide resistance in this species are limited. This new forced egg laying technique encourages the females to lay eggs which we were then able to rear into viable populations.

"This allowed us to study levels of resistance to particular insecticides and in doing so, we have been able to find the first documented resistance to pyrethroid/DDT insecticides in East Africa. This will enable researchers to map the distribution of this resistance and allow the Ministry of Health to modify its vector control programme, thereby increasing its effectiveness and helping to reduce the transmission of malaria."

Source: The paper is published in PLoS ONE. Provided by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

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Acute Pain Is Eased With the Touch of a Hand, Study Shows

There may be a very good reason that people naturally clutch their hand after receiving an injury. A new report published online Sept. 23 in Current Biology shows that self-touch offers significant relief for acute pain under experimental conditions. The researchers suggest that the relief comes from a change in the brain's representation of the rest of the body.

"Pain is quite an important, but also complicated, experience and can be caused in many different ways," said Patrick Haggard of University College London. "We show that levels of acute pain depend not just on the signals sent to the brain, but also on how the brain integrates these signals into a coherent representation of the body as a whole."

Haggard and his colleague Marjolein Kammers, also of University College London, made the discovery by studying the effects of self-touch in people who were made to feel pain using an experimental condition known as the thermal grill illusion (TGI). "The TGI is one of the best-established laboratory methods for studying pain perception," Haggard explained. "In our version, the index and ring fingers are placed in warm water and the middle finger in cold water. This generates a paradoxical feeling that the middle finger is painfully hot." That's ideal because it allows scientists to study the experience of pain without actually causing any injury to those who participate in the studies.

When TGI was induced in an individual's two hands and then the three fingers of one hand were touched to the same fingers on the other hand immediately afterwards, the painful heat experienced by the middle finger dropped by 64 percent compared to a condition without self-touch. That relief didn't come when only one hand was placed under TGI conditions. Partial self-touch in which only one or two fingers were pressed against each other didn't work either. Nor did it work to press the affected hand against an experimenter's hand that had also been warmed and cooled in the same way.

"In sum," the researchers wrote, "TGI was reduced only when thermosensory and tactile information from all three fingers was fully integrated. That is, TGI reduction required a highly coherent somatosensory pattern, including coherence between tactile and thermal patterns and coherence of stimuli between the two hands."

Haggard said that earlier studies of chronic pain had suggested the importance of body representation in the experience of pain. For example, the phantom pain that is often felt following amputation of a limb appears to lessen with time as the brain converges on an updated representation of the body. Haggard said the new findings extend the important role of body representation to acute pain and may lead to a better understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in chronic pain as well.

The findings might be put to practical use, the researchers say. "Our work suggests that therapies aimed at strengthening the multisensory representation of the body may be effective in reducing pain," Haggard said.

The researchers include Marjolein P.M. Kammers, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, London, UK; Frederique de Vignemont, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS/EHESS/ENS, Paris, France; Transitions NYU-CNRS, New York, NY; and Patrick Haggard, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, London, UK.

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Hybrid Protein Developed as Tools for Gene Cutting, Editing

A U.S. team of researchers has developed a kind of hybrid proteins that can make double-strand DNA breaks at specific sites in living cells, potentially leading to better gene replacement and gene editing therapies.

Dr. Bing Yang, assistant professor of genetics, development and cell biology at Iowa State University (ISU; Ames, USA;), and his colleagues developed the hybrid protein by joining parts of two different bacterial proteins. One is called a TAL (transcription activator-like) effector, which functions to find the specific site on the gene that needs to be cut, and the other is an enzyme called a nuclease that cuts the DNA strands. Dr. Yang hopes this study will lead to the ability to engineer genomes by cutting out defective or undesirable parts of DNA, or by replacing defective or undesirable gene segments with a functioning piece of replacement DNA--a process called homologous recombination.

Dr. Yang reported that these hybrid proteins could be constructed to locate specific segments of the DNA in any sort of organism. "This breakthrough could eventually make it possible to efficiently modify plant, animal and even human genomes," said Dr. Yang. "It should be effective in a range of organisms."

The proteins function by binding onto the specific segment of DNA the researcher needs to change. These proteins do this by reading the DNA sequence and finding the specific area to be cut. Once the protein binds onto the DNA at the correct spot, the other half of the protein then cuts the double-stranded DNA. Bad or undesirable DNA can be resected and good or more desirable DNA can be introduced. When the DNA heals, the good DNA is included in the gene.

Dr. Yang began his project approximately one year ago after seeing the results of research by Dr. Adam Bogdanove, ISU associate professor of plant pathology, showing that TAL effectors use a very clear-cut code to bind to a specific DNA sequence. This discovery allowed Dr. Yang to predict precisely where the TAL effector nuclease will bind on the DNA to make the cut. Another study had similar results.

The conecept has also been validated by Dr. Bogdanove and Dr. Dan Voytas, collaborator in genetics, development, and cell biology at Iowa State, and director of the Center for Genome Engineering at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities, USA). The TAL effector-nuclease approach improves on tools currently available for genome modification. It should be faster and less expensive to make TAL effector nucleases, and simpler to design them to recognize specific DNA sequences, according to Dr. Yang.

Yang's findings appeared in August 2010 in the online version of the journal Nucleic Acids Research. Dr. Voytas' and Bogdanove's study also appeared in August 2010 the journal Genetics. Dr. Voytas and Dr. Bogdanove were also able to demonstrate that the TAL effector part of the hybrid protein can be modified to target new DNA sequences.

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by USDA/Agricultural Research Service. The original article was written by Dennis O'Brien.

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Structure That Allows Bacteria to Resist Drugs Identified

A research team led by Edward Yu of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory has discovered the crystal structures of pumps that remove heavy metal toxins from bacteria, making them resistant to antibiotics.

The findings are published in the Sept. 23 issue of the journal Nature.

Yu -- an Iowa State associate professor of chemistry, of physics and astronomy, of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory -- said the finding gives researchers a better understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Ultimately it could help drug researchers develop treatments to combat that resistance.

To make their findings, the researchers purified and crystallized the membrane proteins that make up an efflux pump of E. coli bacteria. The researchers prepared some samples that contained the toxic heavy metals copper and silver and some that did not.

The researchers used X-ray crystallography to compare the various structures, identify the differences and understand the mechanism that removes heavy-metal toxins from cells.

Their paper specifically describes the crystal structure of CusA, one of three parts of the pumps responsible for removing toxins from bacteria. Yu said CusA is an inner membrane transporter which belongs to the resistance-nodulation-division protein superfamily. It consists of 1,047 amino acid residues and spans the inner membrane 12 times.

What those pumps do, Yu wrote in a summary of his research, is "recognize and actively export these substances out of bacterial cells, thereby allowing the bugs to survive in extremely toxic conditions."

The research project was supported by the National Institutes of Health. In addition to Yu, the research team includes Robert Jernigan, an Iowa State professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology and director of Iowa State's Laurence H. Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics; Kanagalaghatta Rajashankar, the operations team leader for the Northeastern Collaborative Access Team facility at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., that's managed by Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; Iowa State post-doctoral researchers Feng Long and Chih-Chia Su; and Iowa State graduate students Michael Zimmermann and Scott Boyken.

"This work reports the first detailed structure of a unique heavy metal transporter that enables bacteria to survive the toxic effects of silver and copper," said Jean Chin, Ph.D., who oversees this and other structural biology grants at the National Institutes of Health. "By detailing the exact steps that a metal ion is likely to take through the transporter, this study suggests how we might block the pathway and render pathogenic bacteria sensitive to heavy metal toxins."

Yu, who has been studying bacterial resistance to antibiotics for nearly a decade, said direct information about how bacteria handle heavy-metal toxins is important information for biomedical researchers.

"We want to understand the mechanisms of these heavy-metal pumps," he said. "And that could allow biotechnology researchers to make inhibitors to stop the pump and the antibiotic resistance."

Journal Reference:

1. Feng Long, Chih-Chia Su, Michael T. Zimmermann, Scott E. Boyken, Kanagalaghatta R. Rajashankar, Robert L. Jernigan, Edward W. Yu. Crystal structures of the CusA efflux pump suggest methionine-mediated metal transport. Nature, 2010; 467 (7314): 484 DOI:10.1038/nature09395

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Can Stress Control Our Genes ?

People  experience stress as something that affects  their  entire body and mind, the causes of which are plentiful. But if we zoom in on the building bricks of the body, our cells, stress and its causes are defined somewhat differently. Stress can arise at the cellular level after exposure to pollution, tobacco smoke, bacterial toxins etc, where stressed cells have to react to survive and maintain their normal function. In worst case scenario, cellular stress can lead to development of disease.

    Researchers from Dr. Klaus Hansen's group at BRIC, University of Copenhagen, have just shown that external factors can stress our cells through the control of our genes.

    "We found that stress-activating factors can control our genes by turning on certain genes that were supposed to be silenced. It is very important that some genes are on and others are off in order to ensure normal foetal development and correct function of our cells later in life," says Hansen.
         Simmi Gehani, PhD-student in the Hansen group, found that exposing human cells to a stress-activating compound turned on silenced genes. Even brief changes in gene activation can be disastrous during foetal development as establishment of correct cellular identity can be disturbed in our cells. But altered gene activity can also have consequences in the adult body. "For example, one could imagine that prolonged stress causes nerve cells in the brain to produce hormones and other signalling molecules they do not normally produce and this can disturb normal brain function," says Gehani.
        The Hansen research group is very interested in understanding how our genes are turned on and off. "We know that different protein complexes can associate with specific proteins (histones) to which DNA is wound around and thereby determine whether the genes are active or inactive. Small chemical groups can cause protein complexes to bind to histones and these can control gene activity" says Hansen. The researchers have studied in detail a complex called PRC2. PRC2 can attach small chemical groups -- methyl groups -- to the histones. Protective complexes can bind to the histones when this marker is present and the genes are turned off. Their new results show that the protective complexes are lost and selected genes turned on when cells are exposed to external stress factors. The reason why the complexes are lost is that the stress factors instruct an enzyme named MSK to attach another chemical group -- a phosphate group -- to the histones neighbouring the methyl group. The phosphate group neutralises the effect of the methyl group and turns specific genes on.

 "The consequence is that genes that should be turned off are now active and this may disturb cellular development, identity and growth," says Gehani. This means that without damaging our genetic code external stress factors can control the activity of our genes.
  The results are published in the journal Molecular Cell
 

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PhD in IISER, Trivanathapuram

Ph. D. Admissions, January 2011

Applications are invited from highly motivated students for admission to the Ph.D. programme beginning in January 2011 at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research – Thiruvananthapuram.

Eligibility criteria

Biological Sciences

Masters degree in Biological/Chemical/Physical Sciences or MBBS. 60% marks or equivalent is desirable. Qualifying in one of the following national level tests with validity as on 1st of January 2011: CSIR-UGC-JRF/DBT-JRF/GATE/ICMR JRF. The second requirement (qualifying in a national test) is waived for applicants interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in ecological sciences. They will however be required to appear for a written screening test at IISER -TVM and only those shortlisted based on the screening will be allowed to appear for the interview.

Research Areas:

Microbial Cell Biology, Structural Biology, Cancer Biology, Ecology and Evolution, and Plant Biology

Chemical Sciences

Masters degree in Chemistry. 60% marks or equivalent is desirable. Qualifying in one of the following national level tests with validity as on 1st of January 2011: CSIR-UGC-JRF/GATE.

Physical Sciences

Masters degree in Physical Sciences, Engineering or Technology in areas closely related to the interests of the physics faculty at IISER TVM. 60% marks or equivalent is desirable. Qualifying in one of the following national level tests with validity as on 1st of January 2011: JEST/GATE/CSIRUGC-JRF. Applicants with M. Tech need a GATE score valid as of 1st January 2010

Mathematical Sciences

1. Master's degree in Mathematics / Statistics / in a relevant area of science with desired CPI of 6.5 (or 60% of marks) and a valid CSIR UGC-JRF/NBHM/GATE/INSPIRE (PhD) as on 1st January 2011.
2. Master's degree in Engineering / Technology in a relevant area with desired CPI of 6.5 (or 60% of marks) with valid GATE score as on 1st January 2010.
3. Bachelor's degree in Engineering / Technology in a relevant area with a desired CPI of 7.0 (or 65% of marks), an appearance in the Indian National Math Olympiad (INMO) in class XI or XII, and a valid CSIRUGC-JRF/NBHM/GATE/INSPIRE (PhD) as on 1st January 2011.
4. Eligibility criterion will be relaxed by CPI of 0.5 (or 5% of marks) for SC/ST candidates.

Research Areas:

Functional Analysis, Numerical Functional Analysis, Harmonic Analysis, Stochastic Process, Stochastic Partial Differential Equations, Mathematical Finance, Financial Engineering, Fluid Dynamics.

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Surgery Can Lead to Long-Term Reduction in Stroke Risk

Mon, 09/27/2010 - 20:42 dilip_pandey

Successful surgery for narrowed arteries in the neck halves the risk of having a stroke over the next 5 years, and benefit persists for at least 10 years, an Oxford-led study has shown.

However, operating on the main arteries that take blood to the brain involves about a 3% risk of causing an immediate stroke.

Otherwise healthy patients who are discovered to have substantial narrowing of either of the main arteries in the neck are at an increased risk of having a stroke in the future. An operation, called a carotid endarterectomy (CEA), can remove the fatty deposits narrowing the artery, but the procedure itself causes some immediate risk of stroke or death.

In this long-running randomised trial, the researchers assessed whether the benefits of successful CEA procedures in reducing the likelihood of a stroke over the next 5 or 10 years balanced out the immediate risks of surgery in these patients.

The researchers conclude that there is likely to be net benefit from operating on those in good health under 75 years old, as long as the surgical risks remain low. Among older patients the immediate risk of surgery may outweigh the long-term benefit, however.

The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet and involving researchers from 30 countries, was led by Professor Alison Halliday of the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences and Professor Sir Richard Peto of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University of Oxford.

The study involved 3120 patients with narrowed carotid arteries in the neck where there was uncertainty about whether or not to have the surgery. Half were randomly allocated to have the operation immediately, and half to have indefinite deferral of the procedure until there was a definite need for it.

Among those who had surgery, the risk of stroke or death during or soon after the procedure was 3%.

But those who had surgery had a substantial reduction in their subsequent risk of a stroke. After 5 years, the stroke risk among those who had surgery immediately was 4.1% versus 10% for those who didn't. At 10 years, the risk was 10•8% among those who had the surgery against 16•9% in those who did not.

Professor Halliday said: 'This trial took more than 15 years to complete because we wanted to know about the long-term effects of surgery.

'The definite benefits that we have found will be of practical value to doctors and patients deciding in the future whether to take the immediate risk of having such surgery.'

The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the BUPA Foundation and the Stroke Association.

Story Source: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Oxford.

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The IBRO Asian-Pacific Regional Committee (APRC) announces IBRO School to be held @ National Brain Research Centre

The IBRO Asian-Pacific Regional Committee (APRC) announces an IBRO School to be held at the National Brain Research Centre, in Manesar, India, from November 29 - December 10, 2010, covering the theme: "Study of Human Brain Structure and Function using Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy." Application deadline : September 15, 2010.

Activities ;
The workshop will be held for two weeks from 29 Nov -10 Dec. 2010. The various components of the workshop will include :

Lectures
Lab practicals and training session
Interactive discussion groups
Social activities.
(1) Lectures: Lectures will be focused on analysis of data All lectures will be complemented by three sessions each day, namely Demonstration session, Practicals/Lab session, and Interactive Discussion/Training session the students will be divided into batches and asked to design and conduct a small research project.
In addition, the class will be divided into three groups ~10-12 students/group).

All lectures will be 50 minutes duration with a 20 minute coffee-break in between, , The faculty will use visual aids (e.g. powerpoint slides) where appropriate and provide outlines of each lecture and background reading lists to the students in advance of the workshop.

(2) Lab Practicals: Lab practicals/lab sessions will be designed to provide hands-on instruction in selected state-of-the-art techniques and will include structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), and electroencephalography (EEG).

(3) Interactive Session: Problem Solving/Tutorial Paper reading and discussion groups: During Interactive sessions the students will have intensive discussion with the faculty and tutors on the techniques being taught, and this will impart an opportunity to the students to hone their practice on the imaging techniques and. twill allow students to focus more deeply on topics of special interest and help them understand the basic perspective as well as state-of-the-art procedures.

(4) Social Activities: The workshop will be designed to facilitate informal interactions between participants (students, visiting faculty and resident faculty). Daily breakfast, lunch and morning/afternoon coffee breaks will provide for interactions between visiting faculty, resident faculty, and students with opportunities for discussions of science, as well as eastern vs. western views on life, culture, art and politics.In addition, the workshop will open with a reception, and conclude with a validectory session for all workshop participants. A tour of Delhi and nearby areas will be arranged over the weekend for the students.

Who Can Apply :
Graduate students, post doctoral fellows. Preferably those registered in a Ph.D program in the basic sciences or Medicine/ Engineering /Pharmacy /Veterinary sciences or any of the allied sciences.

Venue
National Brain Research Centre
National Highway - 8, Manesar
Gurgaon - 122 050
Haryana, INDIA
http://www.nbrc.ac.in

Location : National Brain Reseach Center is nearly 40 KM from Delhi International Airport and is connected to delhi by expressway(NH-8).

Contact Details :
Programme Coordinator - IBRO Workshop
National Brain Research Centre
National Highway - 8, Manesar
Gurgaon - 122 050
Haryana, INDIA
http://www.nbrc.ac.in
Email : conference@nbrc.ac.in

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