This year BRSI annual event too saw the effect of COVID pandemic as the physical presence of attendees was limited to few only following pandemic protocal but the event witnessed overall presence of more than 1000 attendees through online participation.
The 17th Convention of the BRSI was held during April 4-8, 2021 at Jaipur. The event was jointly organized by the Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur; CDC India, Jaipur, Birla Institute of Scientific Research (BISR), Jaipur and National Institute of Technology (NIT) Uttarakhand in association with the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), The Institute of Chartered Waste Managers (ICWM), International Bioprocessing Association, France, and Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (CEES)- India and sponsored by the AKS University, Satna and Jaipur National University, Jaipur.
The event was held in hybrid mode with physical event at BISR, Jaipur. Prof Udaykumar R Yaragatti, Director, MNIT was the conference patron and Prof Ashok Pandey, CSIR-IITR, Lucknow was conference General Chair.
Prof TP Singh, AIIMS, New Delhi; Prof AB Gupta, MNIT, Jaipur and Dr Vivek Agarwal, CDC India, Jaipur were conference chairs and Prof DJ Lee (Taiwan), Prof CG Dussap (France) and Prof Samir Khanal (USA) were conference international chairs.
Dr V Vivekanand was the convener of BSAEH-2021 and Dr P Binod, COE, BRSI; Dr Krishna Mohan, BISR, Jaipur; and Dr Rakesh Kumar Mishra, NIT-Uttarakhand were its co-conveners.
As mentioned, BSAEH was held in hybrid mode, in which a total of 20 plenary speakers, 148 invited speakers and 28 short oral presentations made presentations. Apart from these, 136 Flash Presentations & Posters and 255 posters were also be presented. There were about 625 delegates from 38 countries, including the invitees, general delegates and organizers who attended the conference, which included about 100 persons attending in person. The event witnessed total participation of 1000 attendees given the benefit of online participation.
The conference was opened on 4th April 2021 at 17.00 h IST in BISR, Jaipur, in which Dr Vivekanand welcomed the delegates and gave the details of BSAEH-2021 details.
Prof Sudhir Sopory, newly elected President of BRSI welcomed the delegates and thanked the organizers for making an elaborated arrangement for the conference. Prof Yaragatti gave the opening remarks and welcomed the delegates. Prof Gupta, Dr Agarwal, Prof Pandey and Prof Singh also addressed the gathering. This was followed by the e-release of the conference Abstract book by the dignitaries on the dais.
The star attraction of the opening session was BRSI award function, in which winners of the annual awards of BRSI for the year 2019-2020 were announced and decorated in-person or virtually.
This was followed by short presentations made by Prof Datta Madamwar (Life-Time award winner), Dr Reeta Rani Singhania (Woman Scientist Award winner), Dr Kirtikumar C Badgujar (Young Scientist Award winner) and Dr Brahma Nand Singh (Industrial Medal winner).
Subsequently a special lecture was delivered by Dr Anjan Ray, Director, CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun and newly elected Head of CSIR-HRDG wing.
The on-site and virtual management of the scientific program of the conference was moderated by Dr Kamlesh Choure, Dr Dharmendra Tripathi, Dr Rakesh Kumar Mishra, Mr Vivek Kumar Gaur, Dr Debashish Ghosh, Dr Sunita Varjani, Dr Bhavya Balagurumurthy, and Arijit Jana. Dr T Bhaskar and Dr R Sindhu managed the posters presentation and evaluation.
The scientific program of the conference was run in four parallel sessions on 5th to 7th April 2021. Flash presentations & posters and Posters presentations were made on 5th and 6th April 2021, which were evaluated by the independent set of juries for selecting BEST PAPERS under different scientific themes.
Best Paper awards were for BEST ORAL PRESENTATION, BEST FLASH PRESENTATION & POSTER, and BEST POSTER PRESENTATION (see Table 1 below).
Two categories of awards were sponsored which included (i) Six awards sponsored by the Khanal Foundation, Nepal, comprising a certificate and Rs 2500 as cash to each winner, (ii) Six awards sponsored by the Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability- India, comprising a certificate and a book published by Elsevier.
The closing session was held on 7th April 2021 at 13.00 h IST in which Best Paper Awards were conferred. Also, venue for the next Convention of the BRSI was announced i.e. – CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India to be held on December 1-4, 2021. Dr Debashish Ghosh will be its convener.
Following journals were selected to bring out special issues based on the papers presented in BSAEH-2021.
Bioresource Technology (Elsevier)
Bioresource Technology Reports (Elsevier)
Bioengineered (Taylor & Francis)
Environment Technology & Innovation (Elsevier)
Indian Journal of Experimental Biology (CSIR-NISCAIR)
Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering (CSIR-NEERI)
Microbial Cell Factories (BMC)
System Microbiology and Biomanufacturing (Springer Nature)
Table 1: The details of the winners (in bold letters) are as below:
|
BEST ORAL PRESENTATION AWARD
|
|
| Ashish Pandey, A. R. Mankar, Kamak Kant Pant | Microwave-Assisted Fructose Dehydration to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural using Sustainable Eutectic Mixtures |
| Avanthi Althuri, Venkata Mohan S | Two-Stage Sustainable processing of Biogenic Municipal Solid Waste to Bioethanol and Bio-Crude |
| Le Zhang, Yen Wah Tong | Effects of plastics on bacterial communities during acidogenic fermentation of food waste for production of volatile fatty acids |
| Jeong Chan Joo, Siseon Lee, Kyeongsun Min, HeeTaek Kim, Si Jae Park, Young JeYoo, Jin-Suk Lee | Structure-guided site-saturation mutagenesis of flexible residues for improving the catalytic efficiency of Bacillus circulans xylanase |
| Bhagyashree Tiwari, Balasubramanian Sellamuthu, Patrick Drogui, Rajeshwar D. Tyagi, Marc Antoine Vaudreuil, Sébastien Sauvé, G Buelna& R Dubé | The microbiome analysis of submerged membrane bioreactor treating hospital wastewater |
| Chaeyoung Rhee, Sung-Gwan Park, DaeWook Kim, Sung Il Yu, Juhee Shin, Seokhwan Hwang, Seung Gu Shin | Rapid release of overload stress in semi-continuous anaerobic digesters by bioaugmentation using propionate-enrichment culture |
|
BEST FLASH PRESENTATION & POSTER AWARDS
|
|
| Farheen Akhtar, Asad U Khan, Lama Misba, Kafil Akhtar and Asif Ali | Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy against vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA): A phototheranostic approach against multi-drug resistant infection in vitro and in vivo |
| S. W. Fatima, S. Barua, S. K. Khare | Applicability of Microbial Transglutaminase Immobilized on Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes for Designing Hydrogel Scaffolds |
| Karishma Maheshwari, Madhu Agarwal, A. B. Gupta | Experimental Investigation of textile dye effluent treatment via capacitive deionization utilizing agro waste |
| S. S. Shekhawat, A. B. Gupta, N. M. Kulshreshtha, V. Vivekanand | Effect of combined chlorine and UV disinfection on bacterial diversity, antibiotic resistance genes and disinfection by-products in treated sewage |
| Vivek Kumar Gaur, Pallavi Gupta, Varsha Tripathi, Ravindra Singh Thakur, and Natesan Manickam | Waste derived biosurfactant production from Planomicrobiumokeanokoites IITR52 and its bactericidal potential against gastrointestinal and oral pathogens |
| Georgia Petroula, Panagiotis Kandylis | Functional beer with bioactive compounds |
| Chaeyoung Rhee, DaeWook Kim, Sung Il Yu, MyoungEun Lee, , Juhee Shin, Seung Gu Shin | Biogas potential assessment and characterization of slaughterhouse waste for anaerobic digestion |
| Sudharshan Juntupally, Sameena Begum, Vijayalakshmi Arelli, Abhishiktha Chilliveru, Naveen Kumar Mamindlapelli, Gangagni Rao Anupoju | Improved methane generation from food waste through bio-stimulation of microbiome using granular activated carbon as an additive |
| Krutika LanjewarI, Atya Kapley | Treatment of domestic wastewater in a continuous flow reactor using immobilized biofilms |
| Mitali Merchant, Sharmila S. Mande, Pinaki Sar | Plastic degradation abilities of microbes in waste landfill using metagenomic approach |
|
KHANAL FOUNDATION BEST PAPER AWARD
|
|
| Meera Christopher, Prajeesh K. V., Athira Raj S. R., Rajeev K. Sukumaran | Repurposing Proteases: An in silico analysis of the binding potential of extracellular fungal proteases with selected viral proteins |
| Vidhu Agarwal, Tara Chand Yadav, PritishVaradwaj, Akhilesh Tiwari | Role of omega-loop flexibility and active site plasticity in substrate specificity of extended-spectrum β-lactamases and carbapenemases |
| Anjali Purohit, Gurjant Singh, Sudesh Kumar Yadav | Synthetic bifunctional chimera for the hydrolysis of xylan rich biomass |
| Himadri Bose, AnumehaSaha, Balaram Mohapatra, Pinaki Sar | Exploring the catabolic potential of indigenous microbial community for in situ stabilization of soluble arsenic in arsenic contaminated paddy soil |
| Sushmita Tiwari, Akhilesh K Yadav, R. Parthasarathi | Circular bioeconomy approach towards value-added product development: Lignin based adsorbent for water treatment |
| Suninda Kumari, Neeraj, G.N. Nikhil | In silico studies on selective inhibitors and activators of methyl-coenzyme M reductase |
|
CEES BEST PAPER AWARD
|
|
| Poulomi Ghosh and Saprativ P. Das | Fabrication of a biodigestor towards biorefinery approach for better food waste management |
| Pawankumar Rai, Srishti Mehrotra, Smriti Priya, Sandeep K Sharma | Development of sensor integrated bio-composite membrane for application in food quality analysis |
| Akshita A. Champaneria, Shalini Rajkumar | Unique fructose uptake repression by aldoses leads to enhancement in phosphate solubilization trait in Rhizobium sp. RM |
| Sushmitha T J, Rajeev Meora, Subba Rao Toleti, Shunmugiah Karutha Pandian | Deciphering the influence of thermal discharge-created warming on early-stage biofilmforming bacterial communities using Next-generation Sequencing approach |
| Vijaya Giramkar, Sushma Sabharwal, Girish Phatak | Low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC)-based biosensor for detection of vanadium using immobilized Arachishypogaea alkaline phosphatase on Multi Walled Carbon Nano Tubes-Ethyl cellulose sponge matrix |
| Manish Kumar, Nidhi Pareek | Chemoenzymatic production of chitooligosaccharides and economic analysis |
|
BEST PAPER AWARDS
|
|
| Athulya, Aswathi A, Athira VP, Dileep R, Ashok Pandey, Rajeev K Sukumaran | Chlorpyrifos degradation coupled with plant growth promoting activity of Pseudomonas nitroreducens AR-3 indicate potential in reclamation of pesticide contaminated soil |
| Kaustubh Chandrakant Khaire, Vijayanand Suryakant Moholkar, Arun Goyal, | Alkaline pretreatment and RSM based recombinant enzymatic saccharification of sugarcane tops for production of bioethanol |
| Vallari R. Chourasia, Kamal Kishore Pant, Robert J. Henry | Application of Deep Eutectic Solvents for the pre-treatment of sugarcane bagasse to improve biomass digestibility |
| Papan Kumar Hor, Keshab Chandra Mondal | Preparation of newly formulated rice fermented food with ameliorative properties against obesity |
| Avnish Kumar, Bijoy Biswas, Ramandeep Kaur, Komal Saini, Bhavya B Krishna, Thallada Bhaskar | Oxidative valorisation of lignin into valuable compounds: Effect of acidic and basiccatalysts and reaction parameters |
| Vishal Ghadge, Pankaj Kumar, Sanju Singh, DoniyaElze Mathew, Sourish Bhattacharya, Pramod B. Shinde | Bioactive melanin from Endophytic Bacillus subtilis 4NP-BL Associated with the Halophyte Salicornia brachiate |
| Ayan Banerjee, Jitendra Kumar, Anjan Ray, Debashish Ghosh, Thallada Bhaskar | Comparative characterization of spent and deoiled yeast cake from a biorefinery perspective |
| Anuradha Singh and Preeti Chaturvedi | Assessing the status of antibiotic resistance in riverine environment |
| Xiuna Ren, Quan Wang, Xing Chen, Ronghua Li, Zengqiang Zhang | Mechanisms of Diatomite on facilitating pig manure composting: from the perspective of adsorption characteristics and bacterial community succession |
| Huimin Liu, Mukesh Kumar Awasthi | Biochar as smart candidate to regulate the fate of heavy metals (Cu and Zn) resistant bacteria community during the poultry manure composting |
| Bhawna Tyagi , Indu Shekhar Thakur | Genomic analysis of Parapedobacter sp. ISTM3 isolated from Cave, Meghalayan, India for CO2 sequestration and production of biomaterials |
| VikalpSaxena,UdayJhunjhunwala, Susant Kumar Padhi | Co-treatment of domestic sewage and leachate using a moving bed hybrid bioreactor |
| Tao Luo, Yihong Ge, Yanran Fu, Zili Mei | Improving anaerobic digestion performance of baling rice straw with forced liquid flow in immersion circulation |
| Ashish Pandey, A. R. Mankar, Kamak Kant Pant | Microwave-Assisted Fructose Dehydration to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural using Sustainable Eutectic Mixtures |
| Avanthi Althuri, Venkata Mohan S | Two-Stage Sustainable processing of Biogenic Municipal Solid Waste to Bioethanol and Bio-Crude |
| Le Zhang, Yen Wah Tong | Effects of plastics on bacterial communities during acidogenic fermentation of food waste for production of volatile fatty acids |
| Jeong Chan Joo, Siseon Lee, Kyeongsun Min, HeeTaek Kim, Si Jae Park, Young JeYoo, Jin-Suk Lee | Structure-guided site-saturation mutagenesis of flexible residues for improving the catalytic efficiency of Bacillus circulans xylanase |
| Chaeyoung Rhee, Sung-Gwan Park, DaeWook Kim, Sung Il Yu, Juhee Shin, Seokhwan Hwang, Seung Gu Shin | Rapid release of overload stress in semi-continuous anaerobic digesters by bioaugmentation using propionate-enrichment culture |
| Farheen Akhtar, Asad U Khan, Lama Misba, Kafil Akhtar and Asif Ali | Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy against vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA): A phototheranostic approach against multi-drug resistant infection in vitro and in vivo |
| S. W. Fatima, S. Barua, S. K. Khare | Applicability of Microbial Transglutaminase Immobilized on Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes for Designing Hydrogel Scaffolds |
| Karishma Maheshwari, Madhu Agarwal, A. B. Gupta | Experimental Investigation of textile dye effluent treatment via capacitive deionization utilizing agro waste |
| S. S. Shekhawat, A. B. Gupta, N. M. Kulshreshtha, V. Vivekanand | Effect of combined chlorine and UV disinfection on bacterial diversity, antibiotic resistance genes and disinfection by-products in treated sewage |
| Vivek Kumar Gaur, Pallavi Gupta, Varsha Tripathi, Ravindra Singh Thakur, and Natesan Manickam | Waste derived biosurfactant production from Planomicrobiumokeanokoites IITR52 and its bactericidal potential against gastrointestinal and oral pathogens |
| Georgia Petroula, Panagiotis Kandylis | Functional beer with bioactive compounds |
| Chaeyoung Rhee, DaeWook Kim, Sung Il Yu, MyoungEun Lee, , Juhee Shin, Seung Gu Shin | Biogas potential assessment and characterization of slaughterhouse waste for anaerobic digestion |
| Sudharshan Juntupally, Sameena Begum, Vijayalakshmi Arelli, Abhishiktha Chilliveru, Naveen Kumar Mamindlapelli, Gangagni Rao Anupoju | Improved methane generation from food waste through bio-stimulation of microbiome using granular activated carbon as an additive |
| KrutikaLanjewarI, AtyaKapley | Treatment of domestic wastewater in a continuous flow reactor using immobilized biofilms |
| Mitali Merchant, Sharmila S. Mande, Pinaki Sar | Plastic degradation abilities of microbes in waste landfill using metagenomic approach |
