Abhijit, a localite of Pune, worked as a Research Associate
in the lab for almost 3 years during 1999 to 2002. He completed his PhD from Agharkar Research Institute with Dr. D.R. Ranade,
where he worked on isolation and characterization of novel lipolytic organism Selenomonas lipolytica. In this lab
during his stay, he dealt with the taxonomy of the genus Methanobrevibacter and Selenomonas. He went abroad
to pursue his further studies and currently he is at the Univeristy of Virginia and is working as a PDF there.
Dr. Vyankatesh J Pidiyar
Venkee (as he is known to us), born and brought up in
Lasalgaon, Maharashtra, was actually from a Rajasthani family. He was working here as a PhD student on the
midgut microflora of the mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus and completed his degree in 2002. He was the person
who isolated and identified the novel Aeromonas species from this study and named it as, Aeromonas culicicola
MTCC 3249. A tall, wheatish guy, who was known for his temparament, was the first one to pass out as a PhD student under
the guidance of Dr. Shouche. He went abroad to pursue his further studies at the Univeristy of Virginia and is working as
a PDF there.
Dr. Syril Jayakumar
Syril, a native of Tamil Nadu, was a past PhD student here who was working
with Dr. M.S. Patole, on cloning and characterization of insect Hexokinase gene and completed his degree in 2003. He
was the only person who never skipped his fitness schedule and was the most physically fit person of the lab during his stay
here. An average hight, smart fellow who would always start a sentence with "Daa" (a synonym for friend). He
is presently working in Boston, USA as a post doctorate fellow.
Camel (Kamlesh) joined the lab in Oct 2001 as a NCCS JRF. He worked extensively on Molecular Taxonomy
of genus Aeromonas and Quorum sensing regulation in Aeromonas culicicola. In May 2005, he was awarded
PhD (Microbiology) by the University of Pune, India. He published several articles in peer reviewed international
journals. Presently, working as a post-doctoral associate at Dept. of Microbiology at the University of Georgia, Athens,
GA with Prof William B Whitman.
Dr. Upal Roy
Upal Joined this lab in July 2004 as a DBT-PDF till July 2005. He did his Ph.D in Microbiology from
Goa University, Goa, India. Presently he is working as a PDF at Indiana University, USA.
Dr. Gurddep Rastogi
Postdoctoral scientist at School of Medicine, ATSU, Kirksville, Missouri, USA.
Dr. KM Dayananda
