Biography: Pijush Basak completed his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Microbiology at Calcutta University, Kolkata. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from Calcutta University ( 2014). This was followed by a postdoctoral stint at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Calcutta (2014-2015). He joined JBNSTS as a DST-SERB young Scientist (2015-2018) and Junior Scientific Officer ( 2018) respectively. Dr. Basak has more than two year's postdoctoral research experience from University of Calcutta, Department of Biochemistry in the area of Microbial Ecology. During postdoctoral work, he assimilates knowledge in Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology and related bioinformatics analysis. His current research interest includes Protein structure- function and interaction, Metagenomics and microbial ecology and Plant microbe interaction. He has published twenty two international peer-reviewed journals along with one book chapter. 

He has received SERB Young scientist scheme ( DST Fast-track) grant award as a Principal Investigator of the project titled "Metagenomics of Sundarbans estuarine ecosystem using deep Sequencing : A valuable tool for exploration of novel genes and bioactive compounds".

• Microbial population dynamics study using Metagenomics
• Metagenomics exploration of novel genes and bioactive of using deep sequencing

Area : Protein structure and function

• Investigate the protein ligand interactions
• Investigation of structural and functional insight of stress protein

1) Ahana Das, Pijush Basak, Rudradip Pattanayak, Turban Kar, Rajib Majumder, Debadrita Pal, Anindita Bhattacharya, Maitree Bhattacharyya , Samudra Prosad Banik, Trehalose induced structural modulation of Bovine Serum Albumin at ambient temperature , International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 2017, doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2017.07.074

2) Turban Kar, Pijush Basak, Rittik Kumar Ghosh, Maitree Bhattacharyya, Protective effects of curcumin against gamma ray induced conformational change of Human Serum Albumin, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 99 (2017) 600 - 607 .http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2017.02.105  

3) Turban Kar, Pijush Basak, Rittik Kumar Ghosh, Maitree Bhattacharyya, Analysis of Curcumin interaction with Human Serum Albumin using spectroscopic studies with molecular Simulation, Front. Biol. 2017, 12(3): 199 - 209). DOI 10.1007/s11515-017-1449-z

4) Sudeshna Chowdhurya, Samudra Prosad Banika, Rajib Majumder, Shakuntala Ghorai, Swagata Pal, Pijush Basak ,Suman Khowala , Prevention of protein aggregation by extracellular fungal sucrase of Termitomyces clypeatus . Turk J Biochem 2017. DOI 10.1515/tjb-2016-0297

5) Rudrdip Pattanayak , Pijush Basak , Srikanta Sen and Maitree Bhattacharyya, An insight to the binding of Ellagic acid with Human serum albumin using spectroscopic and isothermal calorimetry studies, Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports 2017 (Accepted) , http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrep.2017.03.001 

6) Rudrdip Pattanayak , Pijush Basak , Srikanta Sen and Maitree Bhattacharyya, Interaction of KRAS G-quadruplex with natural polyphenols: A spectroscopic analysis with molecular modeling , International Journal of Biological Macromolecules , 2016 , 89 , 228 - 237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2016.04.074

7) Pijush Basak, Rudradip Pattanayak & Maitree Bhattacharyya; Transition Metal Induced Conformational Change of Heme Proteins; Spectroscopy Letters . 05/2015; 48(5). DOI: 10.1080/00387010.2014.881380

8) Pijush Basak, Niloy Kundu, Rudradip Pattanayak, Maitree Bhattacharyya; Denaturation Properties and Folding Transition Statesof Leghemoglobin and Other Heme Proteins; ISSN 0006_2979, Biochemistry (Moscow), 2015, Vol. 80, No. 4, pp. 463-472; DOI: 10.1134/S0006297915040100

9) Pijush Basak, Rudradip Pattanayak, Sudip Nag and Maitree Bhattacharyya: pH induced conformational isomerism (change) of Leghemoglobin isolated from Arachis hypogae, Biochemistry (Moscow) (2014), 79(11), 1255-1261. DOI 10.1134/S0006297914110133

10) Pijush Basak, Tanay Debnath, Rajat Banerjee, Maitree BhattacharyyaSelective binding of divalent cations toward heme proteins. Front. Biol. 2016, 11(1): 32 - 42 DOI 10.1007/s11515-016-1388-0

11) Pijush Basak and Maitree Bhattacharyya : "Intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence and related energy transfer in Leghemoglobin isolated from Arachis Hypogea", Turkish Journal of Biochemistry, December, 2013, 38 (1), 9-13 (Journal ISSN: 0250-4685) (doi:10.5505/tjb.2013)

Microbial Ecology

1) Arghya Mukherjee , Bobby Chettri , James Langpoklakpam , Pijush Basak , Aravind Prasad. Ashis Mukherjee , Maitree Bhattacharyya , Arvind Singh, Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay, Bioinformatic Approaches Including Predictive Metagenomic Profiling Reveal Characteristics of Bacterial Response to Petroleum Hydrocarbon Contamination in Diverse Environments, Scientific Reports , | 7: 1108 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-01126-3.

2) Pijush Basak, Niladri Majumdar, Sudip Nag, Anish Bhattacharyya, Debojyoti Roy, Arpita Chakrabarty, Sohan Sengupta, Arunava Roy, Arghya Mukherjee, Rudradip Pattonayak, Abhrajyoti Ghosh, Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay, Maitree Bhattacharyya, Spatiotemporal analysis of bacterial diversity in sediments of Sundarbans using parallel 16S rRNA gene tag sequencing , Microbial Ecology , Volume 69(3) , 500-511 , 2015

3) Arpita Chakrabarty; Amit Bera; Arghya Mukherjee; Pijush Basak; Arindam Mondal ; Imroze Khan; Arunava Roy; Anish Bhattacharyya; Debojyoti Roy; Sudip Nag; Abhrajyoti Ghosh; Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay; Maitree Bhattacharyya Changing bacterial profile of Sundarbans, the World heritage mangrove: Impact of anthropogenic interventions-,World J Microbiol Biotechnol, 2015 , 31:593 - 610 (DOI 10.1007/s11274-015-1814-5)

4) Pijush Basak, Arnab Pramanik, Ranita Roy, Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay, Maitree Bhattacharyya , Cataloguing the bacterial diversity of the Sundarbans mangrove, India in the light of metagenomics, Genomics Data ,2015 , 4: 90 - 92

5) Arnab Pramanik, Pijush Basak, Satabdi Banerjee, Sanghamitra Sengupta*, Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay, Maitree Bhattacharyya, Pyrosequencing based profiling of the bacterial community in the Chilika lake, the largest lagoon of India , Genomic Data , Genomics Data , 2015, 4: 112 - 114.

6) Anish Bhattacharyya, Niladri Majumder, Pijush Basak, Debojyoti Roy, Sudip Nag, Anwesha Haldar, Shayantan Mukherjee , Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay, Suparna Mitra, Maitree Bhattacharyya, Abhrajyoti Ghosh , Diversity and distribution of archaea in the mangrove sediment of Sundarbans , Archaea , Volume 2015 (2015), Article ID 968582, 14 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/968582 

7) Pijush Basak , Arnab Pramanik , Sohan Sengupta , Sudip Nag , Anish Bhattacharyya ,Debojyoti Roy ,Rudradip Pattanayak , Abhrajyoti Ghosh, Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay , Maitree Bhattacharyya, Bacterial diversity assessment of pristine mangrove microbial community from Dhulibhashani, Sundarbans using 16S rRNA gene tag sequencing , Genomics Data ,2016 , 7: 76 - 78.

8) Arnab Pramanik , Pijush Basak , Satabdi Banerjee , Sanghamitra Sengupta , Dhrubajyoti Chattopadhyay , Maitree Bhattacharyya , Metagenomic exploration of the bacterial community structure at Paradip Port, Odisha, India, Genomics Data ,2016 , 7: 94 - 96.

Book Chapter

1. Arnab Pramanik , Pijush Basak , , Sohan Sengupta , Maitree Bhattacharyya, Marine Microbial Diversity: Potential Functions to Degrade Xenobiotics , 2015 , Environmental Sci. & Eng. Vol. 8: Biodegradation and Bioremediation .

Corresponding Author

1. R. K. Ghosh . T. Kar . B. Dutta. A. Pathak .R. Rakshit. R. Basak . A. Das . K. Waheeda .P. Basak . M. Bhattacharyya. Aberration in the structural paradigm of lens protein a crystallin by UV-C irradiation. Appl Biol Chem , 2018, doi.org/10.1007/s13765-018-0351-y

2. Rittik Kumar Ghosh ,Turban Kar , Pijush Basak* and Maitree Bhattachayya* . Hydrophobic profiling of heated and unheated Leghemoglobin, Myoglobin, Cytochrome c and Hemoglobin proteins in differential pH conditions. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 6(9) , 2016.

3. Niloy Kundu, Rittik Kumar Ghosh, Turban Kar, Maitree Bhattacharyya*, and Pijush Basak* , Illustration of fluorescence quenching mechanism of heme proteins using stern volmer quenching system with determination of positioning of tryptophan residues . Journal of Global Biosciences , 2016, 5 : 4579-4584

"Metagenomics of Sundarbans estuarine ecosystem using deep Sequencing : A valuable tool for exploration of novel genes and bioactive compounds,' sanctioned under the SERB Fast-Track Proposals for Young Scientists Scheme, Department of Science and Technology. (amount 35.30 lakh).