Dr. Renitta Jobby

Maintaining an astronaut’s health during space travel is crucial. Multiple studies have observed various changes in the gut microbiome and physiological health. Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) had changes in the microbial communities in their gut, nose, and skin. Additionally, immune system cell alterations have been observed in astronauts with changes in neutrophils, monocytes, and T-cells. Probiotics help tackle these health issues caused during spaceflight by inhibiting pathogen adherence, enhancing epithelial barrier function by reducing permeability, and producing an anti-inflammatory effect. When exposed to microgravity, probiotics demonstrated a shorter lag phase, faster growth, improved acid tolerance, and bile resistance. A freeze-dried Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota capsule was tested for its stability on ISS for a month and has been shown to enhance innate immunity and balance intestinal microbiota. The usage of freeze-dried spores of B. subtilis proves to be advantageous to long-term spaceflight because it qualifies for all the aspects tested for commercial probiotics under simulated conditions. These results demonstrate a need to further study the effect of probiotics in simulated microgravity and spaceflight conditions and to apply them to overcome the effects caused by gut microbiome dysbiosis and issues that might occur during spaceflight.

25 July 2022 in BioMed Research International

Journal Article

Toxicity Mitigation of Textile Dye Reactive Blue 4 by Hairy Roots of Helianthus annuus and Testing Its Effect in In Vivo Model Systems

An anthraquinone textile dye, Reactive Blue 4 (RB4), poses environmental health hazards. In this study, remediation of RB4 (30‐110 ppm) was carried out by hairy roots (HRs). UV‐visible spectroscopy and FTIR analysis showed that the dye undergoes decolourization followed by degradation. In addition, toxicity and safety analyses of the bioremediated dye were performed on Allium cepa and zebrafish embryos, which revealed lesser toxicity of the bioremediated dye as compared to untreated dye. For Allium cepa, the highest concentration, i.e., 110 ppm of the treated dye, showed less chromosomal aberrations with a mitotic index of 8.5 ± 0.5, closer to control. Two‐fold decrease in mortality of zebrafish embryos was observed at the highest treated dye concentration indicating toxicity mitigation. A higher level of lipid peroxidation (LPO) was recorded in the zebrafish embryo when exposed to untreated dye, suggesting a possible role of oxidative stress‐inducing mortality of embryos. Further, the level of LPO was significantly normalized along with the other antioxidant enzymes in embryos after dye bioremediation. At lower concentrations, mitigated samples displayed similar antioxidant activity comparable to control underlining the fact that the dye at lesser concentration can be more easily degraded than the dye at higher concentration.

About Me

Dr. Renitta Jobby is presently working as Assistant Professor in Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Maharashtra since 2015. She is also a member of the Centre of Excellence in Astrobiology at Amity University. She has around 16 years of experience including teaching, research, and industry work. She carried out her Ph.D in Biotechnology from D. Y. Patil University, Navi Mumbai in 2015. She completed her M.Sc in Microbiology in 2005 from the Institute of Science, Mumbai and her B.Sc in Microbiology in 2003 from G.N. Khalsa College , Mumbai. Her research interests include Microbiology, Probiotics, Gut Microbiology, Space Biology. She has several national and international publications which include research articles, review articles, and book chapters. She is the lead investigator in the Amity Microbial Repository of Extremophiles from Ladakh 2021 (AMREL21) which will be culturing, identifying and preserving the extremophiles from sample sites of Ladakh. She is the coinvestigator for the Autonomous Life Growth Experiment-1 or ALGE-1 and Amity Space Biology Experiment-1 which would be India's first Biological experiment to launch for the ISRO PS4 Program. She has also undertaken and completed several other industrial projects for Natural Remedies, Pvt. Limited Bangalore, Futuris Healthcare Mumbai, Municipal corporation of Greater Mumbai, Gumpro drilling Fluids Pvt Ltd.

Dr. Renitta Jobby

Dr. Renitta Jobby

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