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Dr Deepa Paliwal - Department of Biomedical Sciences

Portrait of Deepa Paliwal

Areas of interest

  • Passionate, motivated scientist, working as Postdoctoral Research Assistant, with experience and interest in Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Immunology.
  • Research areas include Molecular Microbiology, Animal biotechnology, Genomics, and proteomics.

Expertise

  • Molecular Biology & Biochemistry: Gateway cloning, Real Time-PCR, DNA/RNA-Isolation, Purification and Estimation of protein, Western Blot, Protein purification and other biochemical assays.
  • Microbiological: Fluorescence Microscopy, Confocal Microscopy, Maintenance of Pure Culture, Identification and Characterization of Microbes, various staining techniques.
  • Plant Biotechnology: Plant Tissue Culture, Agrobacterium Mediated transformation, Transient Gene Expression.
  • Animal Biotechnology: Maintenance of Mammalian & Insect Cell Culture, Transfection, Cell based Assays & baculovirus expression.
  • Bioprocess Engineering: Batch Submerged Fermentation, Solid State Fermentation.
  • Immunology: ELISA, Immunodiffusion Techniques, Western Blotting.
  • Genetic Engineering: Restriction Digestion, Ligation, Competence cell preparation and Transformation, Southern & Northern Hybridization, Colony Hybridization.
  • Bioinformatics: Next generation RNA & DNA sequencing at Galaxy, Tuxedo, Qiime and CLC work bench Platform Database Search, BLAST, ExPASy, PANTHER, Phylogenetic Analysis.

Research projects

After attaining my Ph.D., I started working as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Reading. Here, I have gained experience in various protein expression systems which could be utilised in the formulation of novel recombinant baculoviruses to express target viral antigens in vitro and in situ. This involvement provides an insight into a new era of vaccine design named reverse vaccinology. This design includes antigen prediction to high-throughput purification, screening and selection of the vaccine composition. Finally, prepare and make available the best candidates as potential vaccines for evaluation in bTB challenge studies.

Besides my own research, I have been involved in supervising undergraduate and Master's students in their project work in a variety of areas including (but not restricted to) bacterial diversity, molecular biology and phage biology.

My activities at the University of Reading, coupled with my 4 years research experience in microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry at various labs (UK) have taught me a great deal about project management, developing creative ideas, and thinking on my feet when I had to quickly re-arrange a session on the actual day. I am enthusiastic about science, and have developed my science communication skills by giving departmental presentations, and working with school children during outreach activities.

Background

My Ph.D. at University of Reading explored underlying molecular mechanisms on how bacteria pathogens can kill insects with the aim of utilizing them as effective biocontrol agents. I have employed dual host-pathogen transcriptomic profiling which allows me to analyse large-scale transcriptomic data (RNA-Seq) through the use of Galaxy and another tuxedo platform. Moreover, various statistical tools on Linux & R program help me understand complex data and allowed me to interpret and present RNA & DNA sequencing data for publication work.

Previous work: 

  • Research assistant, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden,U.K. (June-12 to Sept-12)
  • Academic visitor, University of Reading, Reading, UK.(Jan-12 to May-12)
  • Research assistant, John Innes Centre, Norwich, U.K. (Mar-10 to Nov-11)

Academic qualifications

Academic credentials include double post-graduation in Biotechnology and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences.

Awards and honours

  • Awarded University of Reading international studentship (Sept 2012 - 2017) focused on development of new biocontrol agents against aphids.
  • Awarded In Qualified and was offered several National level Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), India 2007 - 2009
  • Qualified National level Graduate Aptitude Test for Engineering (GATE) - 2007 with 13th rank & 99.88 percentile.
  • Gold medal for securing first position in university during M.Tech Biotechnology.
  • Scholarship from Department of Biotechnology, (Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India) for both the Masters program (M.Sc & M.Tech)
  • Received scholarship for holding first position in the entire college for my Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) grade

Websites/blogs

 

Selected publications

Foster, S. P., Paliwal, D., Martin, J., & Williamson, M. S. (2012). Evolution of knock-down resistance to pyrethroids in grain aphids (Sitobion avenae) in the UK. Aspects of Applied Biology, (No.117), 95-96.

Publications

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