Member Q&A: Vijay Kothari
This is a regular column to introduce our members. In this issue, we’re pleased to introduce Vijay Kothari.
Where are you currently based and what is your role? I am currently affiliated with the Institute of Science, Nirma University, India, as a faculty member. Here, as well as guiding PhD students, I teach MSc classes in Microbiology/ Biotechnology. What area of microbiology do you specialise in? Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Tell us about your career journey to date. After earning my MSc in Microbiology from Gujarat University, India, I started my career as a Research Fellow at Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association, India, where I worked on the biotransformation of chitin into chitosan. I then moved to the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology, India, which gave me my first experience of on-site sample collection and analysis. This project was about monitoring water quality and biodiversity of a wetland area called Nalsarovar. Thereafter, I have been based at Nirma University, India, since 2007. When and why did you first become interested in microbiology? As a child, I always found it exciting to observe objects under a magnifying lens or microscope. My school had a good biology lab with multiple microscopes, and using these triggered some curiosity about ‘life at micro level’. Vacation-time reading of spiritual texts mentioning invisible life, books on the history of science, school textbooks describing the contributions of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and Louis Pasteur, and some excellent teachers at BSc and MSc level all contributed to my interest in microbiology. It happened slowly over the years and not in any single moment. What are some of the challenges of working in AMR? Some of the challenges I face include loss of antibiotic resistance and virulence traits from the bacterial pathogens upon repeated subculturing in our lab over the years; finding a critical mass of people in my city/state working on similar aspects of AMR; lack of availability of authentic, well-characterised strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and Caenorhabditis elegans (the worm being used by us as a model
host); finding industrial collaborators and funding for AMR research. Has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your career and, if so, in what ways? Yes, a strict lockdown resulted in the non-maintenance of worms and bacterial cultures and we, therefore, lost our worms. No new experimental data could be generated during that time. Intermittent lockdowns have negatively affected the continuity of our experiments. I particularly missed in-person conferences, which provide excellent networking opportunities with other researchers. What has been the highlight of your career so far? Some of the achievements I am most proud of include being awarded the Sentinel of Science (2016) by Publons; undertaking collaborative research with Atomwise, USA, under their Artificial Intelligence Molecular Screen award programme; my paper ‘Effect of audible sound in form of music on microbial growth and production of certain important metabolites’ being ranked among the top 5% of all research outputs tracked by Altmetric; and publishing the first-ever whole transcriptome report of a sonic-stimulated bacterial culture. Between 2007 and 2019, I also guided 84 MSc students during their dissertation projects. Of these, 71 have gone on to publish research/review papers in various peer-reviewed, indexed journals (or citable preprints) based on their Masters’ dissertations. The satisfaction of converting students into authors has been immense. What do you hope to achieve in your career in the future? I hope to be able to contribute meaningfully towards evidence- based validation of the anti-pathogenic potential of traditional medicine, identification of novel targets and modes of action for future antimicrobials and elucidation of the molecular mechanisms associated with microbial response to sonic- stimulation.
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107 Microbiology Today October 2022 | microbiologysociety.org
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