DR. DIGAMBAR V. GOKHALE
Research Scientist
NCIM Resource Centre
India
Biography
DR. DIGAMBAR V. GOKHALE is Scientist in-Charge of NCIM Resource Centre (1999-2012), which is one of the oldest microbial culture collections in India. This center maintains more than 3000 industrially important microbial cultures with main objective to distribute them to research organizations and industries. He Visited University of Nottingham, UK (1985) under UNDP fellowship program and worked with Prof. Peberdy, an expert in the field of fungal genetics and fungal protoplast fusion.  Visited University of Manchester, UK (1990) under ALIS-LINK program and worked with Prof. Bu’Lock, Department of Chemistry in the area of bio-transformations.Received Ph. D in Biochemistry in 1989 from Pune University.  Microbial Transformation leading to synthesis of drugs and drug intermediates was initiated by me. The program of screening of microbial strains for production of optically active phenylglycine was undertaken which led to identification of the halophilic bacterial strain producing D-hydantoinase enzyme. The work resulted in three US patents. The other molecule of interest was prostaglandin intermediate.identified a suitable yeast strain which produces 4-(R)-hydroxy-1-(S)-acetoxy-cyclopent-2-ene. The product was obtained with 99.8% optical purity and 85% chemical yield. This technology was licensed to Hygeia Laboratory for the production of this intermediate. He is Presently, working in the area of biomass conversion to value added products. He developed the strains which can be used for both D- and L- lactic acid production at commercial scale from sugarcane juice and also from bagasse derived cellulose.
Research Interest
Strain Improvement, Biomass conversion, Microbial diversity and their applications, Enzyme technology and their purification and characterization