Research & Development

National Carbon Management Association is promoting people-centered sustainable development by innovating, applying and advancing appropriate scientific, technical and local knowledge through research, by developing models, demonstration, policy advocacy and project implementation.

To achieve our goal, we equally gives importance to appropriate technology innovation and transfer, environmental justice for sustainable development, social justice, public-private partnership and will facilitate poor people’s access to resources and contemporary knowledge and skills.

Interesting facts about Algae

Algae are the most productive biological systems for generating biomass and capturing carbon. Micro-algae’s ability to transport bicarbonate into cells makes them well suited to capture carbon. Carbon dioxide-or bicarbonate-capturing efficiencies as high as 90% when cultivated in open ponds. The large scale production facilities are necessary to capture carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning of fossil fuel.
Nutritional deficiency is one of the common problems in India. Algal biomass can be utilized as dietary supplements (can be marketed as tablets, capsules, powders, lattes, smoothies, cookies and chips). It contains protein, vitamins, minerals and fibers. Some microalgae such as Chlorella and Spirulina supplements do contain good amounts of protein, vitamins C and K and beta carotene. They are often promoted as good sources of vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acids.

Some microalgae are attractive candidate for their higher lipid productivity can be used as biodiesel feedstock. Biofuel is renewable source of energy and considered as ‘carbon neutral’ fuel because the carbon emitted during burning is almost equal to the carbon absorbed during photosynthesis.

Consultancy and services to help your research and project succeed 

# Microalgae cultivation training in rural area

# Taxonomic study

# DNA Sequencing service

# Molecular identification of the organism

# Phylogenetic study

# Project construction and writing support

# Manuscript writing support

# Others

Director (R&D Advisory Board)

      Dr. Chitralekha Nag Dasgupta

She obtained her Ph. D degree on Botany from University of Calcutta, India in 2006. She worked there as DST (project) Junior Research Fellow and CSIR (Adhoc) Senior Research Fellow in Centre of Advanced Study, Department of Botany on “Genome analysis as well as in vitro anther culture for analyzing the hybridity and production of haploids in Asparagus”. She worked as Postdoc in Laboratoire de Biologie de la Rhizosphère; INRA; Versailles, France on “Transformation in Plant system” and in U571 Laboratoire de Genetique Moléculaire Evolutive et Medicales, Faculté de Médicine, Necker, Paris, France; 2005 to 2007 on “DNA repair system of E. coli: Biological role of DinB translesion polymerase”. She was Research Associate in the Department of Biotechnology, IIT-Kharagpur, India from May, 2009 to December, 2010. Project funded by Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs entitled “BioCO2: An integrated multidisciplinary project using solar energy for production of renewable hydrogen combined with CO2 capture, to address global warming and energy production”. She was awarded Women-Scientist (DST WOS-A) in 2012 and CSIR-Pool Scientist in 2016 and presently working in Algology Section, CSIR-NBRI, Lucknow on “Amelioration of Biohydrogen Generation by Genetic Modification and Process Optimization from Microorganism”.

She has expertise on isolation and identification of algae, culturing procedure, process optimization, extraction of biomolecules, biohydrogen and biofuel production, biochemical (bioprocess) engineering, Fermentation technology, dark-fermentation, photo-fermentation, CO2 sequestration procedure, biomass production processes, biohydrogen production processes from bacteria and algae, physicochemical parameter optimization, chromatography (GC, HPLC), suitable ‘Bioreactor’ designing for biomass and hydrogen production, current molecular biology techniques, genetic and metabolic engineering, identification and characterization (bioinformatics studies) of different genes and submission to NCBI, nucleic acid extraction, quantification, restriction digestion, ligation, primer designing, PCR, cloning, sequence analysis, transformation, random and site-directed mutagenesis, gene silencing, hybridizations  and blotting, Gene manipulation techniques, insertional mutagenesis (gene knockout), complementation, heterologous and homologous over-expression, expression, purification and biochemical characterization of proteins, enzymatic assays, isozyme analysis, plant tissue culture and computational expertises (Microsoft office, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Photoshop, Origin, Bioedit, ApE, Blast, Clustal W, Mega 7, ExPASy etc).

·   Nag Dasgupta C, Toppo K, Nayaka S, Singh A (2017) Algal diversity and water quality assessment in summer season of urban areas near Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Cryptogam Biodiversity and Assessment Vol 2.

·   Nag Dasgupta C*, M. R. Suseela, S. K. Mandotra, Pankaj Kumar, Manish. K. Pandey, Kiran Toppo, J. A. Lone (2015). Dual uses of microalgal biomass: An integrative approach for biohydrogen and biodiesel production. Applied Energy (Elsevier) 146: 202–208. Impact Factor: 7.18 *Correspoding author

[Awarded Best Research Paper in area of Plant Diversity, Systematics and Herbarium, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute (2014-2015)]

·   Kumar K, Nag Dasgupta C and Das D (2014). Study of growth kinetics of Chlorella sorokiniana and nutritional values of its biomass. Bioresource Technology (Elsevier) 167: 358–366. Impact Factor: 5.651

·   Khanna N, Nag Dasgupta C, Mishra P and Das D. (2011). Homologous over-expression of [FeFe] hydrogenase in Enterobacter cloacae IIT-BT 08 to enhance hydrogen gas production from cheese whey. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Elsevier) 36 (24): 15573–15582. Impact Factor: 3.582

·   Kumar K, Nag Dasgupta C, Nayak B , Lindblad P and Das D (2011). Development of suitable photobioreactors for CO2 sequestration addressing global warming using green algae and cyanobacteria. Bioresource Technology (Elsevier) 102(8):4945-53. Impact Factor: 5.651

·   Nag Dasgupta C, Gilbert J, Lindblad P, Heidorn T, Borgvang SA, Skjanes K and Das D (2010).  Recent trends on the development of photo-biological processes for the improvement of hydrogen production. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Elsevier),  35:10218 – 10238. Impact Factor: 3.582

·   Bjedov I*, Nag Dasgupta C*, Slade D, Le Blastier S, Selva M and Matic I (2007). Involvement of Escherichia coli DNA polymerase IV in tolerance of cytotoxic alkylating DNA lesions in vivo. Genetics (GSA), 176(3):1431-1440.*Equal contribution. Impact Factor: 5.963

·   Nag Dasgupta C, Mukhopadhyay MJ and Mukhopadhyay S (2007). Somatic Embryogenesis in Asparagus densiflorus (Kunth) Jessop cv Sprengeri. Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology (Springer) 16(2), 145-149. Impact Factor: 0.954

·   Nag C, Mukhopadhyay MJ, Mukhopadhyay S (2004). In Vitro Direct Regeneration of Asparagus officinalis L.from Multiplied Shoot Bud. Pers. Cytol. Genet. 11:437-441.

·   Nag Dasgupta C, Mukhopadhyay MJ, Mukhopadhyay S (2003) Regeneration of Tetraploid Clone from Callus Culture of Asparagus officinalis L. through Somatic Embryogenesis. Cytologia 68(3):219-223. Impact Factor: 0.913

·   Nag Dasgupta C, Nayaka S, Toppo K, Deshpande U (2017) Genome sequencing and comparative analysis reveals the potentiality of oleaginous microalgae Scenedesmus quadricauda for biofuel production. Communicated.

·   Khanna N, Nag Dasgupta C and Das D.Functional characterization of novel alcohol dehydrogenase of Enterobacter cloacae IIT-BT 08 and its role in hydrogen metabolism. Communicated.

·   Debabrata Das, Namita Khanna and Chitralekha Nag Dasgupta. Biohydrogen Production: Fundamentals and Technology Advances. (Book). [CRC Press – Taylor and Francis group, USA]. February, 2014, ISBN: 978-1-4665-1799-8.

·   Chitralekha Nag Dasgupta  and Debabrata Das. Fundamentals of Biohydrogen Production Processes. Book Chapter 10, Page 491-545. Carbon-Neutral Fuels and Energy Carriers; CRC Press –Taylor and Francis group, USA. Catalog no. K10980, September 2011, 848 pp., ISBN: 978-1-4398-1857-2.

·   Chitralekha Nag Dasgupta. ‘Algae as a source of phycocyanin and other industrially important pigments’. Chapter 12, pp 253-276. Algal Biorefinery: an integrated approach. Capital publishing-Springer. 2015. ISBN: 978-3-319-22812-9

·  Chitralekha Nag Dasgupta and Sanjeeva Nayaka ‘Comprehensive screening of micro and macro-algal species for bioenergy’. Chapter 2, pp 39-56. Algal Biofuels: Recent Advances and Future Prospects. Springer International Publishing. 2017. ISBN 978-3-319-51010-1

Chitralekha Nag Dasgupta, Kiran Toppo, Atul K. Singh and Sanjeeva Nayaka. ‘Bioremediation of municipal sewage using potential microalgae.’ Accepted in Springer International Publishing.