KM

Kirana P Mugaranja, Mugaranja P Kirana

Vitaliz Biosciences, TAXASHILA-Social and Women Development Organization (a NGO), Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research, Mangalore University

ORCID iD 0000-0002-8186-2192
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About

I, Dr. Kirana Mugaranja Puttanna, hold a Ph.D. in Biology titled “Studies on alpha-glucosidase inhibitors isolated from medicinal plants and their endophytic fungi” from Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India.

Currently, I am Keen on pursuing multidisciplinary research in the field of Isolation of biologically active metabolites from natural sources, interactions of small molecules with therapeutically important proteins using structural biology techniques, development of natural antidiabetic, antimicrobial, anticancer etc. Drugs, chemical interactions of endophytes with their hosts and metabolic engineering of secondary metabolite pathway.

During my doctoral research, I have extensively worked on the extraction, isolation, and identification of small molecule inhibitors against the alpha-glucosidase (AG) enzyme (one of the therapeutic approaches to control the hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes) from plants and their endophytic fungi. Importantly, I have gained experience in the separation of active molecules using column chromatography, which includes the preparation of a silica gel column to separate the active molecules. Notably, HPLC-MS and GC-MS were employed as characterization tools to elucidate the structural properties of extracted molecules. In addition, the purified fractions were analysed using an in-vitro AG inhibition assay, an inhibition kinetic study, and antioxidant assays.

As my research progressed, I was keen to understand the binding affinity and interactions between the AG enzyme and the active molecule. Hence, the molecular docking studies were performed using the identified molecules from plants and endophytic fungi against AG enzymes using Schrödinger software. During these studies, I was able to understand the real interactions of molecules with the active site residues of enzymes. Therefore, I could find various potent molecules as inhibitors of AG enzymes among the identified compounds. In addition, the bioinformatics tools and the molecular biology aspects fascinated me during my final year of research work, which motivated me to learn the cloning and expression of human AG enzymes in Escherichia coli using the pET expression system. While doing this part of my work, I gained the experience in handling the instruments like PCR, FPLC, Agarose gel electrophoresis and, SDS-PAGE.

The additional skills that I gained during my doctoral research are,
• Analysis of LC-MS/MS raw data and identification of the compounds using online software’s such as MetFrag and CFM-ID.
• Virtual high throughput screening of small molecules using Schrödinger software.
• Experiences in working with online software’s such as EMBOSS Needle, PyMOL, Coot, RaptorX, SWISS-MODEL etc.
• ADME/Toxicity studies of drug candidates using SwissADME and admetSAR server.

I am a highly motivated person who craves to initiate an ideology for a new dimension in research. I have the passionate in scientific collaborations and have the ability to design and execute the experiments independently

Employment

  • Vitaliz Biosciences Trainee Scientific Officer
    2023 - Present
  • TAXASHILA-Social and Women Development Organization (a NGO) Environment Suggestion Manager
    2022 - 2023
  • Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research Doctoral Researcher
    2015 - 2022

Education

  • Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research PhD
    2015 - 2022
  • Mangalore University Master of Science
    2013 - 2015

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (7)