Prof. Surajit Das is currently working at the Department of Life Science, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India. He received his doctoral degree in Marine Biology with specialization in microbiology from the Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India. He has been awarded the Endeavour Research Fellowship by the Australian Government to conduct postdoctoral research on marine microbial technology at the University of Tasmania. He has more than 15 years of research experience in environmental biotechnology, marine microbiology, bacterial biofilm, waste water treatment, and bioremediation. Prof. Das has maintained a strong commitment to explore the diversity of marine microorganisms from tropical, coastal, mangrove, and deep-sea environments using taxonomic and molecular tools. The main goal of his research is to understand the genetic regulation of bacterial biofilm for the improvement and development of biofilm-mediated bioremediation, thereby restoring the deteriorating environment as an eco-friendly approach.Dr. Hirak Ranjan Dash is an Assistant Professor of Forensic Biotechnology at the National Forensic Sciences University, Delhi Campus, India. He obtained his PhD degree in Life Science from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India. Previously, he served as a DNA expert at Forensic Science Laboratory, Madhya Pradesh, India. His research interests include forensic microbiology, microbial phylogeny, forensic DNA analysis, genetic markers, and next generation sequencing. He has published 50 research papers and 9 books. He has previously received a research fellowship from the Indian Academy of Science. He is a pioneer in India working on NGS-based forensic DNA analysis. He is a life member of the Association of Microbiologists of India, International Society of Forensic Geneticists, and Asian Federation of Biotechnologists.
