Browsing by Author "Sen, A."

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Open Access
Anthrax and Bioterrorism
(University of North Bengal, 2008-03) Chowdhury, J.; Sen, A.
Bioterrorism is the deliberate discharge or dissemination of viruses, bacteria, or other germs used to cause sickness or death in people, animals, or plants. Though these agents are found in nature they are usually modified to increase their ability to cause disease, make them resistant to current antibiotics, or to increase their ability to be spread into the environment. Biological agents can be spread through the air, through water, or in food. Terrorists may use biological agents because they can be extremely difficult to detect and do not cause illness for several hours to several days. Among these biological agents, Anthrax is considered to be the Category-A agent because of its high potency for adverse public health impact and serious effect on large-scale dissemination. Though there is a big hue and cry in the recent past about bioterrorism particularly after 9/11 attack, the history of bioterrorism is fairly old. In the present paper, we have sketched the history and the evolution of bioterrorism with reference to anthrax, particularly microbiology and pathogenesis of the disease causing agent and its clinical symptoms and treatments.
Open Access
A homology model of 16s rRNA tertiary structure of Frankia
(University of North Bengal, 2012-03) Saha, S.; Sur, S.; Bothra, A.; Sen, A.
Tertiary structure determination of biomolecule is important for knowing their function. Although different experimental prediction methods are present computational approach has an important role. Frankia sp., is a nitrogen fixing bacterium promoting soil fertility.16S ribosomal nucleic acid molecule is not only important as a molecular signature for classification and identification of organisms but has a great impact on protein synthesis. Here we have developed 3D structure of 16S rRNA of three different strains of Frankia viz Frankia sp. strain HFPCc13, Frankia alni strain ACN14a and Frankia sp. strain EAN1pec through knowledge based coarsed to atomic approach. The occurrence of tertiary structural motifs like C- loop. E-loop. GNRA tetraloop, hook-turn, sarcin-ricin motif, K-turn, reverse K-turn were examined. The presence of such sort of motif stabilizes the complexed RNA structures through their Watson-Crick, Non- Watson Crick, tandem sheared stacking packages. Among them E-loop, K-turn, sarcin-ricin motif have significant functional importance for transporting the biomolecules, RNA-protein interaction, RNA-RNA interaction/RNA-drug interaction accordingly.