Dr. Rebecca Thombre is a woman Scientist and Assistant Professor in Microbiology.
Background
Dr. Rebecca Thombre is a woman Scientist and Assistant Professor in Microbiology and Biotechnology. Her major research has been funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Space Technology Cell) and UGC Government of India. She has patents on nanotechnology and published more than 50 articles including popular science articles, peer-reviewed papers, abstracts, Edited two Laboratory manuals and contributed 8 book chapters in edited books published by Apple Academic Press, Taylor, and Francis CRC Press and Elsevier.
Education
Dr. Rebecca Thombre was the gold medalist in M.S. (Microbiology) at Bombay University and Ph.D. in Microbiology at Agharkar Research Institute, DST- Government of India.
Career
Dr. Rebecca Thombre has a teaching and research experience of 15 years. She started her research during her Masters Dissertation at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) in 2001 at the Metabolic Engineering Lab. Her doctoral research was on Studying biotechnologically important CGTase extremozyme from extremophiles isolated from Lonar lake-the only meteorite impact lake in basalt.
Her postdoctoral research on Astrobiology was funded in ISRO (2013-2016). Under this project, the microbial diversity of extremophiles in salterns, rocks and hypersaline systems from the Western Coast of India were studied. This lead to the isolation and cataloging of more than 200-300 extremophiles. Similarly, this project reported the mechanisms of survival of extremophiles in salinity, the mechanisms of survival in hypergravity and microgravity. The role of molecular chaperones and small heat shock proteins in temperature stress of these extremophiles was also published.
The research work was covered in research highlights in Nature India.
Her research interest is on studying the physiology of extremophilic archaea to space-related stress like microgravity, hypergravity, salinity, etc.
Currently, her research project on Astrobiology impact experiments on Lithopanspermia is funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation. She has also received an International grant for studying "Molecules of Astrobiological interest" at National Synchrotron Radiation Research Centre, Taiwan.
She is a recipient of Europlanet Transnational Access Grant for studying extremophiles from Tirez lake- A planetary field analog of Mars and Europa.
Her work on " Astrobiology of Saturnian icy moons" led to the isolation of extreme psychrophiles from Himalayan rocks.
She has received funding and grants and projects for her research from GC-CAM (USA) (2005-2008), UGC, New Delhi, Govt of India (2013-2015), BCUD, Pune University (2012-2014, 2014-2016, 2016-2018) and Indian Space Research Organisation -Govt. of India (2013-2016, 2017-2020), National Synchrotron Research Centre Taiwan (2017), Europlanet EU, United Kingdom (2017-2018).
Her research expertise is on the application of these extremophiles for studying their survival and adaptability in Space related stress.