Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) Program
Biotechnology and Biovalorisation of Extremophiles
November 04-13, 2022
Department of Bio-Technology
Dr. B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology,
Jalandhar 144027
About GIAN Program
The Ministry of Education (then Ministry of Human Resource Development), Government of India launched a
program titled Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) in Higher Education in the year 2016 aimed at
tapping the talent pool of faculty, scientists, and entrepreneurs, internationally to encourage their engagement
with the institutes of Higher Education in India so as to augment the country's existing academic resources,
accelerate the pace of quality reform, and elevate India's scientific and technological capacity to global
excellence. GIAN program facilitates the participation of high-quality international academicians/researchers for
delivering short-term courses and programs in Indian institutions. More details on various GIAN courses are
available at http://www.gian.iitkgp.ac.in/
The Institute
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar (REC Jalandhar), was established in the year
1986, became the National Institute of Technology on October 17, 2002 and the status “Institute of National
Importance” by Act of Parliament in 2007. The As National Institute of Technology, the Institute has a
responsibility of providing high-quality technical education in Engineering and Technology to produce competent
technical manpower for the country. The Institute offers B Tech, M Tech, M Sc, MBA, and Ph.D. programs in
several disciplines of Engineering, Science & Technology, and Management. The Institute has signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with many prestigious institutes such as the University of Florence, Italy,
Ecole Centrale de Lille, France, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, University of Bolton, UK, University of
South Alabama, USA, etc. for the mutual academic exchange and strengthening of the academics and research.
The Institute ranked 52nd during the NIRF ranking in the year 2022 in Engineering.
The Department
The Department of Biotechnology, NIT Jalandhar is one of the fifteen Departments of the Institute. The
Department has an MOU with the University of Florence, Italy for collaborative research in “Biotechnology and
Process Engineering in Biofuel Production”. The Department organized GIAN international summer term course
on May 16-25, 2016. Within a span of fifteen years of commencement of B.Tech, M. Tech, and Ph.D. programs,
the Department has achieved results that reflect upon the growth pattern of the intellectual potential embedded
with inter-disciplinary knowledge, human values, and professional ethics among the youth, aspirants of becoming
Engineers and Technologists, so that they contribute to the field of Biotechnology in particular and to the society
in general. The department has well-experienced and dedicated faculty with inter-disciplinary research activities.
Overview
Owing to the rapid growth of population and industrial developments, wastes are being generated at rapid rates.
These wastes create tremendous health, ecological, and social impacts and global concerns for waste disposal
is increasing in recent years. There is a constant lookout for an efficient, facile, eco-friendly, and economical
strategy for the safe disposal of wastes. Most of the conventional methods suffer from several limitations. For
example, chemical methods of treatment demand sophisticated facilities and are not environmentally benign
because these methods often generate wastes that are more toxic than parental wastes. Conventional chemical
methods also fail to treat the highly toxic waste materials such as nuclear wastes and emerging pollutants.
Biovalorisation is a promising alternative for treating wastes as well as converting these into value-added
products. This approach helps in the safe disposal of wastes in an environmentally benign manner as well as
cutting down the operational costs of the process. The use of extremophiles for biovalorisation will be added
advantage. Extremophiles can survive in extreme environments; they help in developing robust processes with a
wide range of operating conditions. In addition, extremozymes are very stable, have a longer shelf life, and greater
activity thereby leading to a high rate of catalysis.
This course aims to cover different extremophilic biovalorisation technologies for the safe disposal of wastes such
as cytotoxic biomedical wastes, recalcitrant agricultural biomass, food wastes, and hazardous nuclear wastes.
The unique component of this course is that it includes practical case studies on i) Uranium Bioremediation project
of the US-Department of Energy (US-DoE); ii) Crew Wastes Disposal project of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA); iii) Greenhouse gas (methane) conversion project of the National Science
Foundation (NSF); and iv) Food Wastes to Biofuels project of the US-Department of Defence (DoD). Professor
Sani, the speaker of this course, served or has been serving as a leader in these projects, and will share his
expertise/experiences on process development, scaling up, and practical outcomes of these projects.
The main goal of the course is to introduce participants to current topics in extremophilic microbial processes,
emphasizing the critical evaluation of published peer-reviewed scientific literature as well as hands-on
experiences on the anaerobic and gas to liquid processes including extremophilic consolidated bioprocessing (in
which pre-treatment, enzyme production, hydrolysis, and fermentation of solid wastes are carried out in a single
reactor at the same temperature). To ensure optimal process sustainability and profitability, this course will also
discuss the overall techno-economical and life cycle assessments for an integrated process.
Objective
The primary objectives of the course are to teach the following concepts to participants:
Basic concepts of extremophilic processes design and development
Emerging contaminants: Health, Ecological, and Social Impacts
Challenges in the safe disposal of hazardous nuclear wastes and emerging pollutants
Biovalorisation of agricultural wastes and industrial effluents
Fate and transport of emerging pollutants in biological systems
Specify engineering principles to extremophilic processes for disposal of hazardous pollutants
Microbial, Enzymatic, Chemical Processes, and their Scale-up study using Extremophiles
Dark and Photo fermentative molecular biohydrogen production from secondary wastes
Case studies on
the Uranium Detoxification project of the US-DoE,
Crew Wastes Disposal project of NASA,
Greenhouse gas (methane) conversion project of the National Science Foundation (NSF),
Food Wastes to Biofuels project of the US-DoD
Techno-economical and life cycle assessments for an integrated process
Registration Process
Step-1: One-time Web (Portal) RegistrationVisit GIAN Website at the link: https://gian.iitkgp.ac.in/GREGN/index and create a login User ID and Password.
Fill up the blank registration form and do web registration by paying ₹500 online through Net Banking/Debit/Credit
card. This provides him/her with lifetime registration to enroll in any number of the GIAN courses offered. Those
candidates, who have already enrolled at the GIAN portal, need not register again.
Step-2: Course Registration (Through GIAN Portal)-
Log in to the GIAN portal with the user ID and Password created. Click on the “Course Registration” option given
at the top of the registration form. Select the Course titled “Biotechnology and Biovalorisation of Extremophiles”
from the list and click on the ‘Save’ option. Confirm your registration by Clicking on ‘Confirm Course’.
Step-3:
After GIAN Registration, the Course fee is to be deposited online in the institute account, as per the details
given below. The program fee covers the course materials and access to all the sessions.
Participants should pay the registration fee through online mode (NEFT/IMPS), and fill up transaction ID/details
in the google form with the link and the account details given below;
Step-4:
After online payment of the registration fee, fill the google form Registration link given below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bn_7sg1CY45oXePJ3m0T5rQybRepJ0wyp3b9TVcALQk/edit?ts=62f92bb7
The last date for registration is 02nd November, 2022 and submit their details in the google form.
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