Indranil Biswas is an Indian American microbiologist and professor in the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics, and Immunology at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in Kansas City, United States.[1]. His research focuses on bacterial pathogenesis, antimicrobial discovery, and the molecular mechanisms underlying infectious diseases. His work contributes to the understanding of microbial physiology and host–pathogen interactions in clinically significant bacteria[2]
Education and training
Biswas attended Lalgopal High School in Ranaghat, West Bengal, and Krishnagar Government College in Krishnagar, West Bengal. He earned a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Agricultural Science from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya (BCKV), Mohanpur, India. He subsequently completed a Master of Science in Biotechnology at Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India.
Biswas received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Paris VII (Paris Diderot) while conducting research at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Jouy-en-Josas, France. Following his doctoral training, he carried out postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, United States.
Research
Biswas’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis and antimicrobial discovery [3]. His work has primarily examined Gram-positive streptococci, major human pathogens responsible for diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, endocarditis, and necrotizing fasciitis . His laboratory investigates the regulation and function of surface-associated and secreted virulence factors, with particular emphasis on the role of proteases in virulence expression and biofilm formation, including in Streptococcus mutans . He also studies two-component signal transduction systems that control virulence gene expression in response to host-associated signals .
More recently, his research has expanded to multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens, including Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae, members of the ESKAPE group of clinically significant bacteria. His laboratory examines mechanisms of virulence, stress adaptation, and persistence, including desiccation tolerance in A. baumannii, and develops genetic tools to facilitate pathogenesis studies. In parallel, he is engaged in antimicrobial discovery efforts, collaborating to identify and characterize novel small-molecule compounds targeting drug-resistant bacterial pathogens.
Honors and awards
Biswas’s research has been supported by competitive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies. He has received several international honors recognizing his contributions to microbiology and his involvement in research and academic exchange programs.
Publications[6]
Biswas has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in the field of microbiology[7]. He has also edited a book on Acinetobacter baumannii: Methods and Protocol by Humana Press[8]. Some selected publications:
Biswas, I., Gruss, A., Ehrlich, S. D, Maguin, E. (1993). High-efficiency gene inactivation and replacement system for gram-positive bacteria. J Bacteriol, 175(11), 3628-35. PMID 8501066
Biswas, I., Maguin, E., Ehrlich, S. D, Gruss, A. (1995). A 7-base-pair sequence protects DNA from exonucleolytic degradation in Lactococcus lactis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 92 (6), 2244-8. PMID: 7892255
Biswas, I., Yamamoto, A., Hsieh, P. (1998). Branch migration through DNA sequence heterology. J Mol Bio, 279(4), 795-806. PMID 9642061
Biswas, I., Hsieh, P. (1997). Interaction of MutS protein with the major and minor grooves of a heteroduplex DNA. J Biol Chem, 272(20), 13355-64. PMID 9148958
Biswas, I., Scott, J. R (2003). Identification of rocA, a positive regulator of covR expression in the group A streptococcus. J Bacteriol, 185(10), 3081-90. PMC154078, 12730168
Biswas, I., Mohapatra, S. S (2012). CovR alleviates transcriptional silencing by a nucleoid-associated histone-like protein in Streptococcus mutans. J Bacteriol, 194(8), 2050-61. PMID 22343292
Hossain, M. S, Biswas, I. (2012). An extracelluar protease, SepM, generates functional competence-stimulating peptide in Streptococcus mutans UA159. J Bacteriol 194(21), 5886–5896. PMID: 22923597
Jana, B., Tao, L., Biswas, I. (2016). Strain-Dependent Recognition of a Unique Degradation Motif by ClpXP in Streptococcus mutans. mSphere, 1(6). PMID 27981232
Shankar, M., Hossain, M. S, Biswas, I. (2017). Pleiotropic regulation of virulence genes in Streptococcus mutans by a conserved small protein, SprV. J Bacteriol, pii: JB.00847-16. PMID: 28167518
Dhaked, HPS., Cao, L., Biswas, I. (2021). Redox Sensing Modulates the Activity of the ComE Response Regulator of Streptococcus mutans. J Bacteriol, 203(23), e0033021. PMID: 34516285
References
Biswas, Indranil; Rather, Philip, eds. (2019). Acinetobacter baumannii: methods and protocols. Methods in molecular biology. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press. ISBN 978-1-4939-9117-4.
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