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)  Disease resistance and evolution in plants

B)  Genome wide and comparative evolutionary analyses of novel domains/proteins in plants

C)  System biology approach for functional annotation of bio-resources (flora and fauna) available in Himalayas.

D)   Integrative biology for screening genes relating to human health & application of in silico drug molecules available from Himalayas.

E)  Comparative genomics and evolutionary perspectives related to microbes’ @cold adaptation @Himalayas.

 Further details are provided with the link: http://14.139.59.212/fgcsl/index.php

National Awards/Honours

1. Received Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) Young Scientist Award -2014 (New Biology) from Vice-President of India, in the  101^st Indian Science Congress held at University of Jammu during 3 -7 Feb, 2014.

2. Received Young Scientist Award for Best Paper Presentation by Society of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, New Delhi at National Conference on " The Science of Omics for Agricultural Productivity: Future Perspectives" held at 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 with certificate of appreciation and momento 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)

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.

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: http://14.139.59.212/fgcsl/vishal.php

Five best selected Publications:

1. Preeti Arya & Vishal Acharya* (2018)  Plant STAND P-loop NTPases: A current perspective of genome distribution, evolution and function. Molecular Genetics and Genomics293: 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-017-1368-3 (IF = 2.939)

2.   Preeti Arya & Vishal Acharya* (2016) Computational identification raises a riddle for distribution of putative NACHT NTPases in the genome of early green plants  PLoS ONE 11(3): e0150634. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150634 (IF =3.057) 

3.      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 BioSystems, 2015, 3362-3377DOI: 10.1039/C5MB00468C (IF= 3.21)

 4.     Vinay Randhawa & Vishal Acharya* (2015) Integrated network analysis and logistic regression modeling identify stage-specific genes in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma BMC Medical Genomics  8:39, DOI: 10.1186/s12920-015-0114-0  (IF = 2.87) (Highly Accessed Article)

5.    Preeti Arya, Gulshan Kumar, Vishal Acharya*, Anil Kumar Singh (2014) Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of NBS-encoding genes in Malus x domestica and expansion of NBS genes family in Rosaceae PLoS ONE 9(9): e107987. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107987 (IF = 3.057)

Details of Publications is provided at the link: http://14.139.59.212/fgcsl/publication.php

A)  Research Associate

1. Dr. Ankita Shukla

B) Registered PhD Students

1. Neeraj Kumar

2. Meetal Sharma

3. Dr. Narendra Tripude (M.V.Sc)

C) Research Fellow(s)

1. Ekjot Kaur

2. Ravi Kumar

3. Abhishek Khatri

Alumni (Past PhD Scholars& Fellows)

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

 Presently doing PostDoc, Punjab University, Chandigarh

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

Presently doing National PostDoc, NABI, Mohali

For more information, please see the link: http://14.139.59.212/fgcsl/people.php