Poorna Viswanathan

As Director of the Undergraduate teaching labs in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular genetics, I coordinate and execute the smooth functioning of all the undergraduate lab courses. I am also responsible for coordinating our outreach programs, as part of our departmental mission of serving our community.

###Education
Ph.D., 1995, Mumbai University Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India
Postdoctoral Fellow
July 2001–January 2007 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Michigan State University
February 2007–July 2007 Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Michigan State University

###Research
I previously worked on –

Transposon mutagenesis of Burkholderia cepacia to identify virulence genes using C.elegans model system.

Understanding the transcriptional regulation of developmentally regulated genes in Myxococcus xanthus
We identified three key cis-elements in the promoter region of a developmentally regulated gene, which have now been found to be binding sites for transcriptional regulators.

I identified the first LysR-family transcriptional regulator, LadA, essential for the transcription of the dev operon needed for the normal development of M.xanthus.

Studies in microbial inulinases
Inulinases are enzymes that convert inulin to fructose in a single step. I worked on fermentative production of inulinase from Aspergillus niger in a laboratory stirred 10 liter fermenter in a medium that was optimized using a fraction factorial and full factorial designs (Publications from this work are available from ISI Web of Knowledge).