Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar
 

Dr. Rakesh Bhatnagar
Professor
Ph: +91 11 26704079; 26742040
Email: rakeshbhatnagar@mail.jnu.ac.in , rakbhat01@yahoo.com

Education: 

Ph. D. (Biochemistry), National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.
M.Sc. (Chemistry), Kanpur University, Kanpur.

Career:

1997-
Professor, School of Biotechnology, JNU, New Delhi.
1990-1993
Coordinator, Bioinformatics Centre, JNU, New Delhi
1989-1997
Associate Professor, Special Centre for Biotechnology, JNU, New Delhi.
1987-1989
Senior NRC Associate, USAMRIID, Fredrick, USA.
1986-1987
Visiting Associate, NHLBI, NIH, Bethesda, USA.
1985-1986
Visiting Associate Prof. Lab. Connect. Tissue, CHU, Caen, France.
1979-1982
Scientist, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Institute, Freiburg University, Germany

Area of Interest:

  • Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases
  • Recombinant Vaccine Development
  • Programmed cell death in prokaryotes


Research Summary:

Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar has been working in the field of anthrax for the past 20 years. He has to his credit the development of genetically engineered vaccine against anthrax. The technology of recombinant anthrax vaccine has been transferred to Panacea Biotec Ltd. and the vaccine has successfully undergone Phase I and Phase II Human clinical trials. Also, his research group pioneered the expression of Protective Antigen gene in a plant system, which marks the first milestone towards developing edible vaccine against anthrax. DNA vaccine against Rabies has been developed in his laboratory and is ready for technology transfer. Further research is being done to develop DNA vaccine against anthrax. Laboratory is also engaged in study of programmed cell death in prokaryotes. His research group has recently initiated research in other important infectious disease systems like Mycobacterium, Brucella; aiming to open avenues for their control.

Honors/Awards:

  • Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar was ranked among the top 10 (seventh) eminent researchers publishing commendable research papers on anthrax. (Open source Global Anthrax Research Literature 2006)
  • Fellow, National Academy of Sciences
  • Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) award for his outstanding research work in the field of Immunology (Development of recombinant anthrax vaccine) for the year 2001.
  • All India Biotech Association Award 2001-2002, in recognition of achievement in Promotion of Biotechnology, In The Area of Biotechnology For Health Care.
  • Haffkine Institute, Bombay, Dr. Gharpure Oration Lecture, 2002.
  • Invited to address Press Conference to announce Development of Genetically Engineered Vaccine against Anthrax, with Minister of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, November 2001
  • Invited to deliver Press Conference to announce Development of Genetically Engineered Vaccine against Anthrax, Annual Meeting of American Society for Cell Biology, Washington, DC., December 2001.
  • Institute of Pathology Silver Jubilee Oration Lecture, 1992.
  • Senior N R C (USA) Research Award, 1987-1989.
  • Best Research paper presented in Society of Biological Chemists Meeting, 1984.

Selected Publications:

  1. Agarwal S., Mishra N.K., Bhatnagar S. and Bhatnagar R. (2010) PemK Toxin of Bacillus anthracis is a Ribonuclease: an insight into its active site, structure, and function. J.Biol.Chem 285: 7254-7270.
  2. Kaur M., Saxena A., Rai A. and Bhatnagar R. (2010) Rabies DNA vaccine encoding lysosome targeted glycoprotein supplemented with EMULSIGEN D confers complete protection in pre-and post-exposure studies in BALB/c mice. FASEB J 24:173-183.
  3. Chawla A. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Anthrax Vaccine. Adult Immunization 1: 1-7.
  4. Chawla A., Midha S. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Efficacy of recombinant anthrax vaccine against Bacillus anthracis aerosol spore challenge: Pre-clinical evaluation in Rabbits and Rhesus monkeys. Biotechnology Journal 4: 1-9.
  5. Kaur M., Chug H., Singh H., Chandra S., Mishra M., Sharma M. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Identification And Characterization Of Immunodominant B-Cell Epitope of The C-Terminus Of Protective Antigen Of Bacillus anthracis. Molecular Immunology, 46:2107-2115.
  6. Kaur M., Rai A. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Rabies DNA vaccine: No impact of MHC Class I and Class II targeting sequences on immune response and protection against lethal challenge. Vaccine 27: 2128-2137.
  7. Midha S. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Genetic Immunization with GPI-anchored Anthrax Protective antigen raises combined CD1d- and MHC II-restricted Antibody Responses by Natural Killer T cell-mediated help. Vaccine 27: 1700-9
  8. Midha S. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Anthrax protective antigen administered by DNA vaccination to distinct subcellular locations potentiates humoral and cellular immune responses. European Journal of Immunology 39: 159-77.
  9. Kanodia S., Agarwal S., Singh P., Agarwal S., Singh P. and Bhatnagar R. (2009) Biochemical and functional characterization of alanine racemase spore protein of Bacillus anthracis. Biochem.Mol.Biol. Reports 42: 47-52.
  10. Joshi M.C., Sharma A., Kant S., Birah A., Gupta G.P., Khan S.R., Bhatnagar R. and Banerjee N. (2008) An Insecticidal GroEL protein with chitin binding activity from Xenorhabdus nematophila. J.Biol.Chem. 283: 28287-96.
  11. Agarwal S., Kulshrestha P., Mukku D.B. and Bhatnagar R. (2008) a-enolase binds to human plasminogen on the surface of Bacillus anthracis. Biochim.Biophys Acta. 1784: 986-94
  12. Gupta M., Alam S. and Bhatnagar R. (2007) Catalytically inactive anthrax toxin(s) are potential prophylactic agents. Vaccine 25: 8410-8419.
  13. Chandra S, Kaur M, Midha S, Gorantala J. and Bhatnagar R. (2007) Induction of cytotoxic T lymphocyte response against Mycobacterial antigen using domain I of anthrax edema factor as antigen delivery system. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun.357: 50-55.
  14. Aziz M. A., Midha S., Waheed S. M. and Bhatnagar R. (2007) Oral vaccines: New needs, New Possibilities. BioEssays 29: 591-604.
  15. Agarwal S., Agarwal S. and Bhatnagar R. (2007) Identification and Characterization of a Novel Toxin-Antitoxin Module from Bacillus anthracis. FEBS Letters 581: 1727-34.
  16. Chandra S., Kaur M., Midha S., Bhatnagar N. B. and Bhatnagar R. (2006) Evaluation of the ability of N-terminal fragment of lethal factor of Bacillus anthracis for delivery of Mycobacterium T-cell antigen ESAT-6 into cytosol of antigen presenting cells to elicit effective cytotoxic Tlymphocytes response. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 351: 702-7.
  17. Gupta M., Alam S. and Bhatnagar R. (2006) Kinetic characterization and ligand binding studies of His351 mutants of Bacillus anthracis adenylate cyclase. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 446: 28 -34.
  18. Alam S., Gupta M. and Bhatnagar R. (2006) Inhibition of platelet aggregation by anthrax edema toxin. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 399:107 -114.
  19. Midha S., Mishra R., Aziz M. A., Sharma M., Mishra A., Khandelwal P. and Bhatnagar R. (2005) Cloning, Expression and Characterization of Recombinant Nitric Oxide Synthase-like protein from Bacillus anthracis. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 336: 346-356.
  20. Aziz M. A., Sikriwal D., Singh S., Jarugula S., Kumar A. and Bhatnagar R. (2005) Transformation of an edible crop with pagA gene of Bacillus anthracis. FASEB J. 19:1501-3.

 

 

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