Our research areas focus on a variety of bioinformatics topics but basic themes includes evolution, comparative genomics, system biology as well as functional genomics.

Within this field we are focusing on the major topics:

A)  Artificial intelligence & Network biology based algorithms for drug discovery from Himalayas for human health

B)  Artificial intelligence for plant immune system

 Further details are provided with the link:https://fgcsl.ihbt.res.in/fgcsl/research.php

National Awards

1.  Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) Young Scientist Award -2014 (New Biology)  @ 101^st Indian Science Congress @ University of Jammu during 3 -7 Feb, 2014.

2.  Young Scientist Award for Best Paper Presentation by Society of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, New Delhi @ G.B. Pant University of  Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, 4-6 March, 2014

3.  Part of Bioinformatics Team @ CSIR-IHBT for 2^nd Position – “Incentive Awards for Publications-2015” under Bioinformatics Infrastructure Facility (BIF), Biotechnology Information System Network (BTISNet), Department of Biotechnology, Government of India (including my 5 out of total 8 papers).

4. Bagged Bioclues Research and innovation award (BIRD)-2016 for outstanding contribution in the field of Bioinformatics and Functional genomics under the age of 35. This award is given by BIOCLUES Organisation, an affiliate of International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB) and Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network (Award Link)

5. Elected as "Associate" of National Academy of Agriculture Sciences (NAAS) under Social Sciences (Bioinformatics)-2021 [Link]
   

Honours 

• Selected as Joint Secretary/ Co-Chair of Bioclues organization (an affiliate of International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB)) for the year 2017-2018.

• Invited speaker & Chairperson for the "International Conference on Bioinformatics" held at Hans Raj Mahavidalaya (HMV), Jalandhar, 2019.

• As a Co-co-ordinator for “Establishment of Bioinformatics infrastructure for biology through bioinformatics (BTBI) under BTISnet”, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.

• AI-based software “Hansa” has been selected and highlighted in annual virtual issue of Human Mutation entitled "Evaluating Mutation Pathogenicity" for the year 2012 with the [link]

• The National Genetics Reference Laboratory (NGRL), Manchester, UK, on analyzing popular missense prediction tools advised usage of “Hansa” as one of the three tools, thus emphasizing the importance of this software that will be highly beneficial to the interested biological community with the [link]

 Academic Achievements

1. All India Combined Examination for ICAR’s JRF, 2003-2004.
2. Department of Biotechnology Fellow (DBT-Fellow) (2003) for M.Sc. through All India JNU Entrance Exam conducted by Jawaharlal Nehru University -2003
3. Junior Research Fellow (2005) for Ph.D. granted by Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
4. Travel fellowship awarded by European Science Foundation, Dresden,Germany, 14^th-17^th April 2010.

Editorial Role

• Selected as Review Editor for Frontiers in Genetics,  2018 onwards

• Selected as Review Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science, 2018 onwards

• Selected as Review Editor for Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 2019 onwards

Oral Talks Invited

1. Invited and presented the oral talk “Prediction of Deleterious Human Membrane Transporter Polymorphisms” at HUGO’s 13^thHuman Genome, Meeting “Genomics and the Future of Medicine” on 27^th-30^th September, 2008, Hyderabad, India.
2. Invited and presented the oral talk “Hansa: An automated method for discriminating disease and neutral human nsSNPs” at Indo-French Bioinformatics Meetings on 23^rd -25^th March, 2011, Hyderabad, India.
3. Invited and presented the talk regarding "The Science of Omics for Agricultural Productivity: Future Perspectives" at G. B. Pant Agriculture University, Pantnagar on March 4-6, 2014.
4.  Invited and presented talk to the scientists attending compulsory training programme conducted by ICAR on "Functional Analysis of Pathogenicity genes of Plant Pathogens" at IARI, New Delhi, on 6 January, 2016.    
5.  Invited and presented talk on Biosciences Study Circle (BSC) seminar on  “Quandary in the distribution of defense signalling regulators in the genome of early green plants" to faculty and PG students  at Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala, on 27^th April, 2016.
6.  Invited speaker & Chairperson for the "International Conference on Bioinformatics" held at Hans Raj Mahavidalaya (HMV), Jalandhar during 22^nd -23^rd February, 2019
   

   For more information, please see the link/;https://fgcsl.ihbt.res.in/fgcsl_lab/vishal.php
   

Selected Publications:

1. Neeraj Kumar & Vishal Acharya*   Machine intelligence-driven framework for optimized hit selection in virtual screening. Journal of Cheminformatics 2022 Jul 22;14(1):48. doi: 10.1186/s13321-022-00630-7. PMID: 35869511; PMCID: PMC9306080 (IF =8.48)

Software link: https://gitlab.com/neeraj-24/A-HIOT

2. Ravi Kumar, Abhishek Khatri & Vishal Acharya* Deep learning uncovers distinct behavior of rice network to pathogens response iScience, Volume 25, Issue 7, 104546 (IF =6.1)

Software link: https://gitlab.com/ravisaroch/dlnet-host-pathogen-interaction/

Database link:https://fgcsl.ihbt.res.in/RicePathDLNet        

3. Meetal Sharma, Prince Anand, Yogender Padwad,Vivek Dogra, Vishal Acharya* DNA damage response proteins synergistically affect the cancer prognosis and resistance Free Radical Biology & Medicine 2021 Nov 27;S0891-5849 (21) 00831-5. doi:10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2021.11.033 (IF=8.1)
4. Srijana Mukhia#, Abhishek Khatri#, Vishal Acharya*, Rakshak Kumar* Comparative genomics and molecular adaptational analysis of Arthrobacter from Sikkim Himalaya provided insights into its survivability under multiple high-altitude stress Genomics (2020) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2020.12.001 (IF=4.31)
5.  Vinay Randhawa, Anil Kumar Singh & Vishal Acharya* (2015)  A systematic approach to prioritize drug targets using machine learning, a molecular descriptor-based classification model, and high-throughput screening of plant derived molecules: a case study in oral cancer  Molecular Omics, 2015, 3362-3377 DOI: 10.1039/C5MB00468C (IF= 4.212)
   
   Details of Publications is provided at the link: https://fgcsl.ihbt.res.in/fgcsl_lab/publication.php

A) Registered PhD Students

1. Neeraj Kumar

2. Meetal Sharma

3. Nymphaea Arora

4. Ekjot Kaur

5.  Ravi Kumar

6. Dipali Bhatia

B) Research Fellow(s)

1.  Abhishek Khatri

Alumni (Past PhD Scholars& Fellows)

1. Dr. Vinay Randhawa (Defended Thesis, 2016)

2. Dr. Preeti Arya (Defended Thesis, 2017) 

3. Dr. Narendra Tripude (Defended Thesis, 2021)

For more information, please see the link: https://fgcsl.ihbt.res.in/fgcsl/people.php