By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 28 Jul: A progressive research work, headed by Dr Vijay Kumar, Assistant Professor at the Himalayan School of Biosciences, Swami Rama Himalayan University, Jolly Grant, has found pride of place in the prestigious ‘Scientific Reports’ dated 25 July, 2022.
‘Scientific Reports’ is one of the renowned science and technology journals published by Nature.
The research work relates to Pullulanase, which is an enzyme extensively used for industrial purposes. It is used to produce glucose, maltose and maltotriose syrups.
These products have found significant applications in the food industry. But, unfortunately, the production of this enzyme falls short of its demand. This is where the above research findings have gained in importance. They have filled an important gap.
Very few reports are available on Pullulanase production from ‘native strains’ of ‘fungi’ and ‘bacteria’ because of low yield issues. Moreover, high production costs and low yield are the major limitations for the industrial production of Pullulanase.
This research has worked on bringing down the production cost of Pullulanase by using the solid-state fermentation (SSF) process. The cost can now be minimised considerably by selecting agro-industrial waste.
In the present report, the researchers have for the first time reported details related to extraction of Pullulanase from Penicillium Viridicatum and its production under solid-state fermentation.
“We have scaled up the process for high yield of this enzyme using agricultural waste which has solved two problems,” explains Dr Kumar. “First, effective management of agriculture waste is a dream finding; and secondly it is clear that the cost of Pullulanase production will be considerably lowered,” he adds.
The research team includes Dr Akhilesh Kumar, Assistant Professor at HSBS, and Megha Choudhary, a PhD scholar working under the supervision of Dr Vijay Kumar.
This path-breaking research work was conducted in collaboration with Dr Bindu Naik, Assistant Professor at Graphic Era University, Dehradun.
