Bioinformatics, AI, and Machine Learning in Microbial Drug Development

Dr. Vagish Dwibedi is an academic researcher with over eight years of experience in biotech research and development. He received his PhD from NIPER Mohali and Thapar University in Patiala, India and is currently a Visiting Scientist at the Agriculture Research Organization (ARO) - The Volcani Institute in Rishon Lezhion, Israel. Before joining ARO, he served two years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology at Chandigarh University and was a Research Scientist at Agpharm Bioinnovations LLP. Dr. Dwibedi’s work is directed towards the development of screening platforms for different biological activities such as anti-microbial, antioxidant, anti-cancer, or finding novel molecules that interfere in the mechanism of development of diseases such as Alzheimer's Dementia (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), Obesity, Anti-gout (arthritis) and Type 2 Diabetes. He has published more than 30 research papers in various national and international journals and has two Indian patents.

Dr. Nancy George is an academician and researcher with more than 15 years of experience in the field of biotechnology. She is presently working as Associate Professor at Chandigarh University, Punjab, India and is involved in research work focussed mainly on environmental biotechnology and applied microbiology. She is a member of numerous scientific/professional societies including American society for Microbiology (ASM), Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI). Dr. George has received a senior research fellowship from CSIR, India and has numerous publications in various high impact journals of international repute. She has published dozens of research papers in various national and international journals.

Dr. Santosh Kumar Rath is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy, DIT University. Dr. Rath is a medicinal and natural product chemist having over 10 years of experience in research, academia, and industry. Dr. Rath received his Ph.D. in 2022 from AcSIR under the supervision of Dr. Sanjib Das, Principal Scientist, Materials Chemistry Department at CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (CSIR-IMMT), Bhubaneswar, India. Formerly, he worked as an Associate Professor and Research Head at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Danteswari College of Pharmacy, Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh. He also worked as Research Associate (CSIR-RA) in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, India. He got awarded Senior Research Fellowship (ICMR-SRF) from ICMR, New Delhi India, and did research work at CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM), Jammu, India. Dr. Santosh has published more than a dozen of research papers in reputed journals.

Dr. Swapnil Kajale is currently working as a Postdoctoral Scientist at the Agriculture Research Organization (ARO) - Volcani Institute in Rishon Lezion, Israel. He earned his PhD from Savitribai Phule Pune University in India. Dr. Kajale has over to years of research experience in Microbiology. He has completed several research projects in microbial ecology and microbial taxonomy, barcoding etc. using multi-omics approaches. Before joining the ARO, he was at the National Centre for Microbial Resource (NCMR) which has one of the largest microbial culture collection at DBT-National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, India. Here, he was responsible for maintaining the patent deposits in the International Depository Authority (IDA) under the Budapest Treaty. He awarded a ARO-Postdoctoral Fellowship in Israel to conduct the research within the framework of an Israeli Ministry of Agriculture project on antibiotic resistance in agro-environments. He has published 20 research papers in various international journals.