Faculty

Prof. Sunil Kumar Khare holds the position of a Professor of Biochemistry and Institute Chair Professor at IIT Delhi. An alumnus of IIT Delhi, he received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry (1990). He did his Postdoctoral research at National Food Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan. Prof. Khare has more than 30 years of academic and industrial research experience with 160+ publications and patents. His current noteworthy contributions have been in the area of differential proteomics of solvent-tolerant/halophilic class of extremophiles and deciphering nanotoxicity mechanisms in plant and microbial systems. Prof. Khare holds a good reputation in the international research community. He has been invited as visiting Professor to University of Blaise Pascal, Clermont Ferrand, France (2018 and 2014). He was a Visiting Fellow (DBT) at Northern Regional Research Laboratory, USDA, Peoria IL, USA (2006). Prof. Khare has been honoured with awards like United Nations-Amway award in 1998, Malaviya Memorial Award Senior Faculty-BRSI in 2018. He is also an elected fellow of prestigious societies like Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), International Forum on Industrial Bioprocesses (IFIBiop), France, Biotech Research Society of India Fellow of BRSI (FBRS), Fellow of National Academy of Sciences (FNAAS), India, Fellow, Academy of Microbiological Sciences (FAMSc) and UNU-Kirin Fellow, Japan. Additionally, he is appointed as the current Vice-President of BRSI, India and the Joint Secretary of AMI, India. He has also been member of several professional societies like American Chemical Society (ACS) and has served on several committees and scientific advisory boards. He is the Associate Editor of 3 Biotech and Editorial Board Member for Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B and Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. Apart from being an academician, he has been actively involved in several administrative responsibilities. This is reflected by being Chairman, GATE-JAM, IIT Delhi (2016-17). Currently, he serves as the Dean, Research & Development, IIT-Delhi.

Research Interests

Professor Khare's research integrates chemistry and biology with expertise in the realm of Microbial Bio chemistry, bringing in the hidden traits and exploiting the less known microbes for various biotechnological and industrial benefits. The group's major research theme include the discovery of extremophiles and novel enzymes, purification and their molecular and structural adaptations to understand their life processes. Within these realms, the group is working on following research areas:

I. MICROBIAL BIOCHEMISTRY
● Extremophiles and Extremozymes: Screening, isolation and characterization of extremophiles, especially halophiles, archaea and solvent tolerant microorganisms.
● Extremozymes: Purification of enzymes and characterization of their novel genes to understand molecular basis of stability and their proteomics.

II. APPLIED ENZYMOLOGY: ENVIRONMENTAL & FOOD BIOCHEMISTRY
● Immobilization/ modification of enzymes and cells for applications

1. in antibiotic, heavy metal, microplastic, and organochlorines bioremediation.
2. in food processing, removal of anti-nutritional factors/detoxification, bioconversions and by-product utilization.

● Enzymatic nanoflowers for targeted drug delivery.

III. NANOTOXICOLOGY & NANOBIOCATALYSIS
● Interactions of nanoparticles with microbial cells: effect on membrane, interaction with cellular proteins and DNA and subsequent changes in proteome profiles to decipher mechanism of nanotoxicity.
● Use of nanomaterials for enzyme immobilization to develop effective biocatalysts. ● Microbial nanocellulose. ● Nanodelivery of nutraceuticals for inhibition of disease related enzymes.

IV. PROTEOMICS
● Proteomic investigations on mechanistic interpretations of bacteria-nanoparticle interactions, proteome profiling of mechanisms of phytotoxicity, proteomic studies on ionic liquid toxicity to microorganisms, proteomic approaches to understand the role of outer membrane porins in the organic solvent-tolerance of extremophiles.

Selected Publications

1. Tanya Nagpal, Shahenvaz Alam, S.K. Khare (2021) , Santosh Satya , Shivani Chaturvedi and Jatindra K Sahu “Effect of Psidium guajava Leaves Extracts on Thermo-Lipid Oxidation and Maillard Pathway Born Food Toxicants Acrylamide in Indian Staple Food” Journal of Food Science and Technology, Accepted, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-021-04984-y .
2. Neerja Yadav, Lata Nain and S.K. Khare (2021) “One-pot production of lactic acid from rice straw pretreated with ionic liquid”. Bioresource Technology, 323,124563.
3. Ankita Maurya, Amrik Bhattacharya and S.K. Khare (2020) “Enzymatic Remediation of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)–Based Polymers for Effective Management of Plastic Wastes: An Overview” Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 8: 602325.
4. Sumit Kumar, Neerja Yadav, Lata Nain and S.K. Khare (2020) “A simple downstream processing protocol for the recovery of lactic acid from the fermentation broth”. Bioresource Technology, 318, 124260.
5. Syeda Warisul Fatima, Sayan Barua, Meryam Sardar and S.K. Khare (2020); Immobilization of Transglutaminase on Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes and its Application as Bioinspired Hydrogel Scaffolds; International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 163, 1747-1758.
6. Shahenvaz Alam, Syeda Warisul Fatima and S.K. Khare (2020); Unravelling promise of Indian herbal compounds as potential COVID-19 therapeutic agent; Research Square, doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-41688/v1 (In Press).
7. Razi Ahmad, Sukriti Srivastava, Shubhrima Ghosh and S.K. Khare; Phytochemical delivery through nanocarriers: a review; Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, 2020, 111389.
8. Shivani Chaturvedi Amit K. Gupta Amrik Bhattacharya Tanmay Dutta Lata Nain and S.K. Khare (2020); Overexpression and repression of key rate-limiting enzymes (acetyl CoA carboxylase and HMG reductase) to enhance fatty acid production from Rhodotorula mucilaginosa; Journal of Basic Microbiology, doi: 10.1002/jobm.202000407.