Welcome To Cell and Tissue Culture Laboratory

Overview:

Cell and Tissue Culture Laboratory was launched in January 2013 to meet the increasing demand for cell culture techniques in molecular biology, biotechnology as well as in medicine. The laboratory holds state-of-the-art research facilities with modern equipment for a range of experiments in fundamental biological sciences, cell biology, tissue culture, immunogenetics, microbiology, virology, and taxonomy. While diverse in scope, our scientists are unified in their focus to understand the combined effect of genomic, biochemical, cellular, genetic, and computational approaches with sophisticated imaging and molecular techniques. We are highly collaborative and our group remains to engage in the top quality of research with other scientists throughout the world so that we can play a crucial role to rescue the world from emerging health challenges.

Research Area:

1.     Cell Culture and Toxicology

2.     Impact of climate change on the emergence of infectious diseases.

3.     One-Health Approach for clinic-molecular Epidemiology of emerging infectious diseases in clinical and environmental samples.

4.     Food Virology.

5.     Isolation and characterization of economically significant/antibiotic-producing microbes.

Services:

1)  Qualitative and quantitative assessment of the cytotoxic effect of different chemicals or bioproducts. Qualitative assessment is a simple but convincing and widely used technique in which the cells with the testing substrate are examined under a light microscope for general morphology, vacuolization, detachment, and cell lysis in comparison to control cells without the substrate. In contrast, quantitative analysis determines the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of a compound through MTT assay, which is a well-established technique for cell viability examination.

2)    Other cell culture-based studies: While we are committed to opening our cell culture facilities for all types of cell-based studies, we are very much conscious about biosafety as well as lab security. A study can be performed only after consultation with our experts and under the supervision of the authority.

3)    Virus study: We have a separate compartment of biosafety level II in our laboratory for virus study: virus isolation, propagation, and molecular characterization. Viruses that are suitable within Biosafety level II are recommended only for study.

4)    Digital Microscopy includes both light microscopy and fluorescence microscopy with an inverted microscope for live observing and capturing images.

5)    Speed Vac for vacuum concentration of DNA/RNA/phytochemical fractions in organic solution.

6)   Absorbance reading at a wide range of wavelengths (200 - 999 nm.) and microplates (6- to 384- well plate).

7)  -80° C Ultralow Temperature Freezer with generator electricity backup to keep the freezing temperature always constant between -75°C and -80°C.

8) Supply of nanopure water (Specification: inorganics up to 18.2MΩ.cm, bacteria <1 cfu/ml, organics <5ppb, particles <0.2µm, endotoxin <0.001EU/ml, DNase <4pg/µl, RNase <0.01ng/ml)

Facilities:

1.     Animal cell culture and preservation facilities.

2.     Cell lines that we have: Vero, HeLa, BHK-21, Molt-4, MA-104, MDCK, 8C Tax, C₆36

3.     Cell culture-based studies.

4.     Qualitative measurement of cytotoxic effect on cancer and/or non-cancer cell lines.

5.     Quantitative measurement (IC₅₀, ED₅₀) of cytotoxic effect on cancer and/or non-cancer cell lines.

6.     Studies on viruses of risk groups 1 and 2 can be performed inside the BSL-2 lab.

7.     Molecular detection of viral infections in clinical samples (PCR and ELISA).

8.     Molecular detection of viruses in environmental samples.

9.    Antimicrobial activity against various Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.

10.  Isolation of microorganisms from the soil, air, water, and food samples.

11. Methanol, ethanol, and ethyl acetate extraction from plant.

Personnel:

1)      Dr. Sheikh Ariful Hoque (Principal Scientist On-leave from Jun 3, 2022 to April 2, 2023)                       

               JSPS Post-doc (Virology), Ph.D. (Virology), MPH (Epidemiology), B.Sc. (Microbiology)

2)      Dr. Tania Hossain (Scientist & Lab-in-charge Acting)

  Post-doc (Plant Microbiology), Ph.D. (Plant Microbiology), M.S. (Botany), B.Sc. (Botany)

3)      Ummay Nasrin Sultana (Senior Technical Officer)

              M.S. (Biochemistry), B.Sc. (Biochemistry)

Current Projects:

Sl	Title	Year
1	Molecular characterization of Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD) virus in Bangladeshi children under 5 years of age and finding out the way of spreading.	2020-2021
2	Molecular detection and characterization of Enteroviruses in the river and canal surface water in Dhaka city.	2021-2022
3	Impact of climate change and Rotavirus vaccine on viral gastroenteritis in Japan and Bangladesh.	2022-2023

Collaborations:

Sl	Organization	Description
1	Nihon University Graduate School of Medicine, Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan	Jointly we are challenging emerging enteric viruses in developing and developed countries.

Publications: