Appcourses

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Yesterday we left a topic in the middle. So, we will first complete with those things. Later on we will proceed to the second level which is tips on reviewing your research articles.Yesterday we left at the culture part of microorganisms within. So, we are still left with certain more aspects, including cell culture. Now, some of you must have already done cell culturing of animal cells or plant cells in your labs. So, in either case. This is the basic diagram, especially for animal cell cultures not plant tissue culture. But you can also use this for practitioner culture as well. So first of all, you are going to take the tissue sample tissue, which is composed of a lot of cells, you’re going to dissect the tissue in order to get rid of fatty and necrotic cells or anything else that is not required. Right.Then, further steps are required for taking individual cells out of the tissue. Now, why do we require a single cell to form a colony? Why don’t we just go for five or 10 or maybe 100 cells which can give rise to a colony yesterday, while carrying out microbial plating also we were going for dilution What was the need of having dilution?dilution means you are decreasing the cell content in one ml of the sample or solution What is the need for doing that? It will be not pure yes second and second thing even if you are having a pure culture you are having suppose a pure culture preserved in your slant and again if you want to make a colony out of this, first you are going to make a streak out of this and then out of that streak if you get a single separated isolated colony, you pick that up and then you again culture it on another plate.Why do you take only one colony, why not the whole one, because we assume that one colony is made up of all those cells which have been derive from only one cell. So, that is the assumptionas Goonies said, it is going to prevent the contamination and it is going to give you a rough idea that there were supposed there are 30 colonies of bacteria in this particular place. So, this gives you a rough idea that approximately 30 cells will present in that 0.1 ml of the solution which you poured on to the media okay. So, in order to get a rough idea and in order to get a pure colony from only one particular type of cell, same applies to animal cells as well. So, here again, we are trying to take out individual cells from a tissue sample. So, we can either go for fine dissection by directly physically chopping away the tissue or you can take help of sieves, syringes or pipette. Suppose this is a syringe or a pipette which is having small diameters of the core at the end. So, when you are trying to inject your tissue sample out of the spore obviously the tissue will be broken away and single cells are at the most double cells will come out of that one. So, you will be able to isolate individual cells from that tissue sample later on, you can again make a dilution of this whole thing which you have optain out of the syringe and get it plated on this media okay who get the colonies. Similarly sieving, sieving is just like an ordinary sieve that you have seen the kitchen sieve or the bathroom sieve which is having force. So, you are going to rub your sample onto the surface of the sieve of course under aseptic conditions and that is going to take away individual cells from that tissue which you can take out and play later around.

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Another thing that is used here is enzymatic this aggregation. Now, why do we require enzymes again because it is a tissue and tissue is made up of different cells, they are together because they are having certain intra cellular or basically inter cellular connections between them. Okay, so, these connections are made up of proteins all of us we know that right. So, in order to remove those proteins we can take help of tripsin and or collagen enzymes and things. Okay. collagen that is removed hydrolysed its linkages are broken by this particular collagenase and tripsin and tripsin is used for other type of proteins like selectins, integrins, which are making up the inter cellular matrix ok. So, again there are two or three methods for collagenase you need to give longer incubation periods, because this collagen is the most abundant protein which is present in animal tissues. So, its more exposure is required to that particular enzyme. Tripsin can be given as cold tripsin you know long tripsin, if it is all tripsin and only overnight treatment will do, but if it is warm tripsin long incubation is required, okay. So, then whatever cells you get, that will be in a mixture, so you will separate the cells via centrifugation at the bottom and Resuspent and seed into the desired just like these. Okay. So you’re going to have a lot of cells in your culture, which again you can dilute and you can get it either transfer to that colony to give rise to callus or mass which can give rise to plants or the animals desired so that can be done or you can simply multiply the cells into primary and secondary cultures to generate the cell line. So, do you know what our cell lines like? We use cellular lines you get it from commercial sources as well, what is the cell line like we are trying to work on cancer cells So, we will take up certain cell cancer cell lines from the commercial sources like companies or even hospitals Okay. Now, the thing is, cell line is a is a multiple copy of the cells obtained from one single source. For example, if you are studying the breast cancer cells color study, so you are going to get those breast cancer cells from some company who is having the cell line of breast cancer cells. That means, all those cultures will be pure and obtain from what that one particular person or the lady who had got that breast cancer some times back. So, there was a lady who was suffering from breast cancer and they took out it’s her cancer spot and then they cultured it and purified culture it and maintain the culture. Like hella, It is a cancer cell line you will get a lot of things okay. So, for the first time when they are taking out the cell from the infected mass and plating it onto the medium, it forms primary cell culture and later on when you are making copies from this second culture onwards, it becomes subculture okay. Similarly, it was about bacteria, microorganisms and animal cells. Now there are certain phytoplankton, you know phytoplankton, even phytoplankton are used in fish hatcheries and mollusk hatcheries because you want to feed the fish with phytoplankton. Now what is phytoplankton in the first place? It is these type of organisms, okay? These are basically a microalgae, Okay, and these are acting as, yes Marine algae. So these are eaten up by fishes and mollusk. So when you want to culture fish and mollusk, you want to give them as feed to them. Okay? Like there are a lot of such flagellates and diatoms algae which are used in fish tanks as food pallets are there okay small pallets are there so

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you can see here isochrone tetraselmis that means you want to feed your fish with something yes which can grow in the presence of sunlight so for that what you need you should grow it on regular basis to feed your fish with this every time you can’t take it from the company itself that is going to be expensive. So you can culture them as well. This is a very good okay. This is from a research paper that I obtained it from and some other sites as well. So, what you can do first thing, what the algae require is light it grows in the presence of light, we have seen it always. So, basic requirement for algae is to is to get the sunlight. So, first thing you should be growing it in sunlight, it is not necessary that you require only bigger things, even flask, these kinds of chambers can also be used for microalgae propagation. And you can see these have been put along with a source of light. You can also grow them in the presence of natural sunlight. Along with that CO2 is required some time more CO2 is provided into the surrounding environment as far the algae need inoculum original algae culture. One or two cells whatever you wish to add temperature regular temperature normal okay. So, how do you make the medium for the growth? That is from seawater because algae have a habit to grow in the presence of lots of nutrients, have you seen if there is a lot of contamination, human contamination of organic material with phosphorus and other things, nitrogen and all things in the lakes there is something called eutrophication. Have you heard of eutrophication in the lower classes yet, so, eutrophication occurs because algae from the lake are obtaining nutrients from that contamination. So, those nutrient sources We developed from seawater by filtering it so as to prevent the contamination and removing unwanted metal then autoclaving and pasteurization regular sterilization or chemical sterilization can also be done then you get your media which obviously is going to be present in these you put the solution the nutrient medium and then you sterilize it using autoclave other methods are also there like chemical sterilization using alcohols, aldehydes ,halogens or gaseous sterilization Okay. Gaseous sterilization is usually used for rooms bigger cases okay. So, but how these chemicals are working that you can check here again because I can’t discuss so you can check it here and just like bacterial growth phase, these are also having lag phase, log phase,stationary phase then dead phase. Lag phase when initially you put your culture into the medium it starts adapting to that conditions exponential phase that when it has already adapted to the conditions and it has started multiplying rapidly, there comes a stage where lots of toxins accumulate space constraints are their nutrient is decreased. So, stationary phase appears after that, that’s it starts ok. The next thing here is this is your this is from some experiment how they have get it out the experiment to increase the content of algae for their commercial values. Initially, you can take a stock culture from some some standard laboratory, like MCC, ATCC, MPCC type of cultures, if you want only one particular type of culture, then you can put it into you can revise the culture. So, I was saying you can take the stock culture you can revive the culture into required conditions then you will have to make a bigger culture taking small steps first 250 ml flask and two liters last 20 liters flask and then 200 liter cylinder. Now, the thing is if your purpose is just to hatch the fish and you are not very much concerned what the fish is eating, you can even culture the algae in any pond which you are having. But if you are experiment specific, you want to see what kind of culture should be taken you Want to standardize the condition under those cases you should consider maintaining the aseptic condition for that obviously, you are having an lamina here with UV light plexiglass window which is there so that you can see Bunsen burner door, the overall wavelength ranges from 90 to 390 nanometer, but the one that we use here is to 254 nanometer which is usually mostly the has the highest ability to degrade the microorganism or to give rise to sterilization. Okay. Yeah, so, the sources of contamination are like insects because they will be attracted to this air or air supply system if the plugin is not correct. Then innoculum which you have to put in the log phase if that is contaminated that is going to spoil the whole culture water source, if that is not properly sterilized after what autoclave or chemical sterilization or dirty hands or the flask itself, how do we sterilize the glassware if you put it in the hot air oven for at 150 degrees for two hours even that will surface empty glass I mean. Then now, we are done with this as well. So we can have a look on insects as well because insects are also preserved and stored. The insect which is the students of entomology, who regularly handle insects, they also have to take care of these. So just a few methods of preservation, how can preserve hard body insects and how you can preserve soft body. So hard bodied insects like beetles, true bugs, how do you store them, you dry the specimen. And then you put it into clean vile or box put cotton or tissue paper inside the mailing tube. Mailing means if you are going to send the specimen somewhere, so you should first put your bug into the tube and up in the vile. And after that, cover it with cotton or tissue paper so that this little damage soft body insects like aphides, caterpillars and other ones are best preserved in Alcohol, so treat them with alcohol to preserve soak them overnight in alcohol enough ethanol should remain in the specimen to preserve them for short periods of time during the transfer itself. Okay. Freezing or placing the insect into very hot water will kill the specimen, specimen should be preserved in alcohol for shipment using 70% ethanol then we carry out SEM electron microscopy, what happens? We take our sample and put it in ethanol in a stepwise manner first 30% ,50%, 70%. So, what does that do? What is the purpose of putting ethanol to it? Actually what happens is when you put your sample in ethanol, the sample it is having little or some water that yes, that water is actually replaced with ethanol. The water is H2O and ethanol is C2H5OH. Okay, so body replaces H2O with C2H5OH and dissolves liquids as well. But we don’t want to remove the structural details here. So, when we do the stepwise okay treatment with alcohol what happens water is replaced by C2H5OH, but wherever there is this ethanol it is going to preserve the insect morphology as well. And later on if you want to further try this ethanol takes lesser time compared to water itself right. So, that is why ethanol is preferred and also 70% ethanol is not having any side effect on human beings.But methanol is having side effects. just to wind up this thing. How do you take care of animals Now, obviously, get the animals like rats, mice cows, that those things you cannot culture. So, you will have to breed them that is a separate issue, but how you take care of them even if you look at the farmers or the people who have lots of cattle, they make proper space for animals the cattle, they give them requisite temperatures, if requirement of light is there that is also given. So, once okay so, you have to take care of what is required in the like mouse, rat, hamster all of these require this particular temperature. Rabbit requires this particular temperature in terms of degree Celsius and degree Fahrenheit. How much space do they need? What is the height accordingly, you have to decide. Again you have to give husbandry, what food is required. For example, fish eats the pellets flakes of this phytoplankton. How much water aquatic animals require and how much it has to be condition condition with oxygen and other nutrients. Sanitation should be regularly checked up cleaniness, disinfection because animals they cannot live without clean environment themselves so they are trying to clean the surroundings by themselves as well. Pest control is also required. Then, if you are having free time, you can also support them by giving some some animal doctor who can help them treat their diseases. Then identification is required. So, tags are taken, tags are usually put into their ears, if you see for record keeping purposes, how many cattle do we have? How many of them are this particular specie how many are males, how many of this particular age group what what is the requirement and all these things. So, if you want to go through all this you can refer to this link it is a very good link of NCBI and yes yesterday someone was asking about whether and NCBI is having this thing Oh, keys taxonomic key or not, actually I went through the NCBI website and I could not find any keys, but yes it has certain taxonomy details have been given about certain organisms. So, okay, here we are done with second day’s lecture. Let us know Still we are left with the disposal part. Obviously, if there are there is something that has to be discarded we need to take proper care especially if it is radio label or it is off some cytotoxic clinical or pharmaceutical origin. So, for that, first you should make proper note of the name of the material, if it is specified by environmental health safety list identification code if there is some batch number. lot number, how much quantity you are trying to dispose of and the date What is the matter of disposal, it is incineration or you are dumping it all you’re putting it for composting names of person who authorized implemented or witness their disposal okay. So, sometimes you require certain government officials also who witness and they give permission for the disposal of that particular type of waste material okay. like printed package printing material, packaging material and any bulk material which you assume that someone else can reuse and get harmed that has to be shattered into smaller pieces. Excess of you can see for example, there are certain things suppose there is a lot of animal waste, animal waste so, like cowdung or something you do not want that someone else should take this up and use for its use it for their own purpose. So that has to be dissolved into something else. To make it very much dilute so that someone else does not use the medical devices, they have to be crushed up and grounded, to make them unusable. Alcohol, if there is any form of alcohol, which is being used, obviously alcohol is always in use and you must have incidences that even there are certain people at the workplace itself. They take it, they consume it, not the researchers, not the educated people, but yes, maybe some daily wage labor, they take it up, okay. So try to keep it into safe place and if it is already use, try to dilute it with some waste. And labeling is also destroyed by permanent ink markers. So that’s to prevent unauthorized off site usage. Like you always have these three different types of bins. Where you put the clinical waste in the yellow one,cytotoxic waste like anti metabolites anti tumors in the purple one and in the red one you put pharmaceutical waste okay? And if you want to incinerate do you know what is incineration burning, burning under controlled conditions like it is completely yes burning especially under covered condition so that the side products the byproducts do not enter water, air or soil and they should be safely disposed later on. So incineration temperatures are decided based on what type of waste you have. Okay. And if there are certain slabs and infected things, you either autoclave, rotoclave or incinerate again. Then landfill is the ultimate source if nothing else is working. So, you will have to put it into that particular site where only waste is disposed of it is lengthened. So, here we are done with yesterday’s things. Now, don’t worry it is not going to be very long. We will complete it in time, it is about on certain tips regarding how to review a research article.Now, you can take it into two ways. First, you are yourself an editor and you are publishing a journal on regular basis and you want to find out out of so many manuscripts which you have obtained, which is suitable for your journal, but that is not of your interest as a student and as a researcher what you require is you want to get a good review, get a good research paper and you want to analyze it for your own requirements, okay. So, you should look into some specific features of that research paper review article before incorporating that into your own research method, introduction part, abstract part, review of literature part, research discussion part, whatever it maybe, okay. So in order to start your research, finding out the relevant literature is very important. Okay, what is it relevant literature in the first place? How do you find one, where do you find one and how do you decide what are the criteria for the relevance. So, the first thing that the key here is to consider the source. Source, the source from which you are getting the idea what research I want to carry out, has it been done in the past? What were their results? Were they satisfactory? Did this all have any purpose? See, whatever research you need to if it is not solving an already existing problem, that is of no use, okay? So always find out what you want to search. How are you going to research it? Is it going to give you some extra information? Is it off some used to someone else, even if you’re going to publish it in Nature or Cell paper that is of no relevance to anyone, to any of the person in any of the societies of the word that is of no use to try to get something which is of some social use, that can be used by our friends or by our family. So, first you find out the source from which you have to get the idea, the source for which is going to support your findings and the source, which you can take help off to carry out the experiment like the materials and methods. Top thing we discussed yesterday, how you should write how an ideal material and method part should be written, right. So, always look for that particular type of material method part which is clearly mentioning each and everything. So, how do you first of all, find the research paper of your interest. There are several sources, electronic sources databases, like you can go for Google, first thing you go for is, Google. So, probably the quickest way to access a lot of material. There may also be key sources of publications follow up subjects that are accessible electronically, like certain standards, you want to carry out this different type of experiment. But in none of the research papers or none of the thesis by your seniors, have you found a good technique to generate the standard protocols, the standard graphs, whatever. So, you may get it online in some of the research papers, a good method you can find, so, you have to look for a lot of research papers of your relevance, look for the research papers, so that you can get standards or some past material, similar or maybe a different one. awesome videos like you are a hired person for chromatography.Like Initially, I did not know how to do chromatography, okay. And there was no nearby senior who could tell me. So do you know about research gate it is a very good profile profile making can be done here, you can publish your paper you can post your papers here, you can have a identity in the research community and you can get the context researchgate Okay, just like Facebook, Instagram, researchgate is also there, but you need to provide the institute ID okay Institute email id suppose you are having [email protected]. So, that has to be given, you can make your profile you can upload your research papers, articles, which are published or yet to be published and these kind of things and you can also get to know from other researchers into the community, like I asked them, How should I proceed with this particular experiment they will provided me

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if you do not tell it to previously researchgate was alone, but now that does not allow. So, even if you are working in some company, that will also give you some ID.

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So, here you can actually interact with

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so many researchers and you can ask them question you can make comment on their publication you can ask them to give the full publication Okay, sometimes you get even the best publications which are not available online or via Google. So, I checked with them I got the exact protocols and I followed it. Similarly, you can get videos and audio recordings from YouTube and other sources Okay. Have you heard of voice of bio technica in by technica as well we are having why so bad technical section, which is regarding podcasts. So, they are we discuss about certain decent things resource justice, yeah. So, that is also type of research based backing that you can get, you can also ask questions over there. So, second option here is whatever research paper or review article that you are checking, you can check their references as well which references they have opted for like yesterday I was telling you, you should do properties even if you are modifying some existing research protocol then also you should mention his or her research protocol. So that someone with reference to your article can also get idea about some other researchers work okay. This will provide you with a long reference list and some evolution of the references it can be

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you you can find out out of those 70 References

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if this one is off your interest or not, you can google it later on at least you can google it

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Third is hand searching. Now, you Google the things to use the software because they take less time and give you more results. But no electronic literature search can be 100% comprehensive. For example, you’ll write

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Streptococcus. So everything related to Streptococcus will come.

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Even if it isn’t us, even in the Google you will get a lot of news from here and there and the images are of no use to you.

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So nothing can be done. And also if suppose there are some research papers, there are certain research journals which are not online till date, like Indian Journal of ecology. It is not going to publish its articles

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online. So, how are you going to get it obviously, you will have to

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get that information from such print material. So, go to the library, look for the pile of journals, scroll through the contents go through individual article and find out its relevance to your desired subject.

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mentoring with isolation part only, and you few refer to suppose 50 papers, all of them will be having one or other thing which is different from each other. So, that you can take into consideration maybe fourth paper

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is giving you better results than seven papers protocol okay or it is have more relevance to you than this one. right

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even if both of them are isolating the bacteria only. Bacteria are different, the species are are different, their genera different. So things maybe. sometimes even a key idea can be discovered like, like just Arpita was discussing that what if she’s not not getting this result

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while going through all those 50 papers, you may get an idea that instead of going for this you can also go for this which is already back supported. This can also be done which is already having certain

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relevant literature. Okay.

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Okay, so there are different types of

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journals. Let us see all of these in a bit. Scholarly,

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peer reviewed journals, even if you go through Google you will look, you will find certain scholarly journals. What are scholarly journals..?

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Which are get a mixed standards journals and are reviewed by

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experts in that particular field. And what is peer reviewed? See, what is a journal? Journal is a publication house. So journal is being given by a publication house, who was having an editor in chief right. Then under him several other editors work. Then there are certain reviewers as well who are working with him in association with the journals.

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The news, some sources may contain articles which can be used in research. So have you gone through this CRISPR baby news

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CRISPR baby.

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There was a scientist

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in China. Yeah. What he did. He had got a lot of volunteers out of which the parents were suffering from some disease and he wanted to create a baby who was not suffering from that disease using the CRISPR technique. So

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he was later on arrested as well because designing a baby is not ethically allowed. But still that is a news that is of some relevance to all those who are working with CRISPR. So, academic journals basically they are same as peer reviewed journals, so it can be used in interchangeable manner.

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Reviews: Review of scholarly resources are often included in Academy journals.

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Like I say, research papers where you carry out the research and put them in the shape of a paper. Review is when you look through a lot of researchers which had been made till date and based on that information, you generate a review article okay. Magazines, just like BioTecNika has its magazine and we are having articles so that is a magazine. But don’t include these things in your research paper they are for information, but these are not going to provide you backing for supporting your results. Okay, like you asked for videos. Until then, unless you are getting this backing from some journal from some publication house. Don’t consider that. Don’t put it into your thesis or research paper. Okay.

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Okay, so, peer review, as I said is the heart of the scientific method.

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So, once research must survive the scrutiny of its course before it is presented to the largest scientific community for being worthy of consideration. Reviewers also there which are also known as referees, who are expert what experts in a particular topic or a particular field, they evaluate whether studies methods are appropriate results are accurate author’s interpretation is correct or not, because the interpretation is based on several different experiments, and it also required the backing from previously explored journals right, previously explored papers. So, all of that has to be carefully monitored, referees are expected to alert the journal editor about those problems and they are also responsible for pointing out the required changes which will be passed on to the author so that they can make the requisite changes and then the paper can be accepted. So, how do we identify if it is a scholarly article, if it is a peer reviewed article, first thing it should have footnotes. So, first thing much you should see that

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the journal should be having footnotes

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Footnotes about the article is there, their the corresponding person is this and here you can contact with this and the journal is having not this responsibility, but the author has taken responsibility with animals he has taken consideration of pet and all these things are there,okay. There is a list of references. If you go through magazines or articles, there is usually little or no references. The author institutional affiliation, like I say I am from Biotecnika. So BioTecNika is my affiliation. The publication is from some professional organization or Association. And the article has technical terms, technical terms like it should not write bacteria it should give Rhizobium leguminosa okay. So, yeah, here it comes. Now, what is the indexing, all of these ratings, which are given by various sources like Thomson Reuters is the best rating best impact factor that is considered

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then there is SCI,

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then NAAS rating is also there, which is considerable for agricultural Institute’s then similarly there lot of even Google is having its own, researchgate is also giving its own ratings. That means best journals like Nature, Cell they are having a rating of 20, 40, 50 in terms of impact factor, but those journals which are not cited by these types of indexes are not considered good. Also, you can find out the quality by reading this. Best journals are free of cost. They just look for the content. Okay, so try to get best results, try to work hard. So, don’t go for I must suggest don’t go for Google or like road type of things. You can instead go for Thomson Reuters, JCR which is called SCI, index Copper Nichols is also considered especially in engineering journals, rest I’m not sure if somebody is considering or not JGATE, it is also sometimes considered.

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How do you find the scholarly articles in a database. Database, if you go to library, What is a database database is a collection of similar things. So that means a lot of articles are present related to your relevance in that particular database. So, how do you find the one of your choice? So, first you check whether it is a peer reviewed or scholarly journal or not, if it is, either of these two, it is of some use to you. if it is a scholarly journal, see most of the time scholarly journal and peer reviewed journal

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are used

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like one after another without any particular relevance, but what is the basic difference between a scholarly journal and peer reviewed article the journal. So, a peer reviewed journal can have contents from related topics like it may be a journal of biochemistry, so all the topics of biochemistry are being included in that particular journal in different issues in different volumes year after year. But in scholarly journal, only single thing will be taken like enzyme kinetics, out of biochemistry and peer reviewed articles are also considered by experts, but scholarly articles can only be understood by those people who are experts on that particular field. Like if I know the basics and each and every detail of enzyme kinetics, only then I will be able to understand this, but if you are not, you can rather go for other articles from other journals which are equally good, but you can understand them in an easy language Okay, did you get me. So, this is the basic difference otherwise, even if the scholarly journal is there and you get the referees from outside the journal, then it is going to be peer reviewed scholar region. So interchangeability, these can be used. Now, what are the three basic steps in finding the articles? First, find out which articles is available related to your topic using a database. Okay, you know, what is a database like? Google is having a lot of databases out of which the search engine is going to tell you which is of your requirement, similarly there is another search engine called Summon which is specifically for scientific readings. It has been developed by University of London, it is an online library. But other thing is you need to register for it. And I’m not sure if the Indian people can get registered. on it, it has certain requisites for those students of University of London itself, but it is another search engine just like Google. Yes, you can find the things, how do we use this summon that also have given now this summon is a search engine just like Google or Yahoo, right. But it is also having its own pros and cons. Summon collects the majority of full text online journal articles into its search so that is a good thing majority, but it does not search everything. For example, if there is something which is not online available, that will never be available to you on Summon even. And just like in the Google, you are having sections – video, images, news, Summon is not having something like this, it will give you results like this, like I typed here, Journal of Experimental biology, it gave me all those related articles, which were there, okay. And these are not only articles, these may book chapters, ebooks, book reviews data set dessertation, newspapers news. Someone is going to give you a list of all those things, letters, pamphlets related, whatever is related. Okay, so if you do not want ebooks, you just cross it if you do not want book reviews, just cross it. So that part will be removed. Okay, you can also find, there is a lot of detail here. And also, if you want to mail you can go for mailing that to your own email id, like this is the one available for me. So you will get the link. So even if you don’t get it here, you can google the article, maybe you get it there, or you can go to general site, maybe it is there, then you can download it.

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Then even if you have got the article, based on the title, first you’re going to get the title only then you can go for abstract and keywords are also there right? Good research articles are having good keywords which are having appropriate binomial nomenclature, and it is correctly mentioned with relevance. So, first you go through the title, then filter based on abstract what it is doing actually, then you go through the rest of the paper, maybe even after reading the abstract, you are not getting that particular thing. So carefully scan the whole article to find if it is relevant. Okay. So, after going through all this, what you should come to know is this source making my paper presentation better? Are you getting something from it, are you getting a new idea, are you getting a new technique? What does this source do to me? Is it have some use or not? How could I use this source in helpful way. Can I get a technique from this? Can I get an idea from this or can I generate a new research topic from this, or can I use it form of a backing for review, the discussion part. Does it provide background or textual information? does it provide evidence for one of my points? Like I said here is it providing backing for your results? Can I analyze it to undermine an opposing argument or not? Like

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a student

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she said that

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she wants to go for a research paper the research work which has already not been supported. So, maybe you are already having the research idea in your mind which is having opposition. So, if you find a research paper of your relevance, which is helping you to fight this opposition, maybe it is of some use to you, can I use information as an example to illustrate a point? So, all these things you should consider properly even after reading.

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So, how do you judge

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whether this article is good enough or not? The first step is to evaluate the evidence presented in any source. So, the first step is read that paper fully as we have done already and then find out whether the evidences which he is claiming is that already supported by something else is it already having a backing from some other research paper or not? If it is not having then be careful about trusting that okay. But there is another thing, now, Nature, Cell these the best journals and every time they give you a groundbreaking research, which is always different from whatever you had not read. So, it may be a new research, but if it is supported by a journal like nature, that means it is awesome relevance. So that you can take but if similar research paper has been published by a low rating journal or no rating journal at all, then you should consider it once or you can refer to your guide. Then, okay so, when you evaluate the journal article, consider if the thesis or anything is there, suppose there was a person who did his PhD and now top his PhD thesis he produced a very good publication. So, if that is there, that also can be used, maybe his thesis is of more used to you then asked whether the argument or analysis seems convincing to you or not, if the sources leaving you with several important questions unanswered, okay, you are reading all this thing, the research paper, you also look for the backing, you also look for thesis, but you were not able to get it. And even it has aroused few more questions in your mind, then that is of news. You should also consider how using this source in your essay or the publication will affect the future direction of your research. As I told yesterday, detailing is important. The reviewer the referees try to look into each and every word of your

56:50

manuscript. Okay, he is going to scan this

56:53

properly, even one word is going to hang you in the middle. Does it continue information that challenges your assumption? Then it is of no use? or if this challenge is going to help your article grow better than it is of use to you. Does it present any strong evidence against your position from which you need to find the counter evidence? So if you need to think so much, try reanalyzing your manuscript, or try reanalyzing that manuscript. Because these two should not be completely different. Does it suggest a new direction, maybe other than this, I can get this also as a result. And maybe together all this is going to give you give me a better presentation, a better result. How do you evaluate the author, author is also important, okay? When you start reading the journals on regular basis, you are likely to develop liking about some particular author or some particular journal. Because obviously, you’re going to read the publications of your interest, you’re not going to here or there are randomly, right. So you will like one author more than someone else. But how should you like him? What should be the criteria for liking someone. More scholarly or professional journal articles contain a short biographical note about the author, you can find that author on webpages like Researchgate, or maybe he’s having his own blog, or website there, you can check. You can also look for the background professional experiences, interests, or maybe you can contact him directly. Right? In this world of web, we can always contact the second person via email. So that could be of some use to you. And also, what kind of author is he or she that is also going to affect the results of his publication and how you want grasping the results of his publication? Because he is, suppose there’s an author who is quite rigid minded, he doesn’t want to change his results, even if the observation is something else. That means the publication the results which have been produced by him, may not be well. Maybe he wanted the results to be thousand kg. And the results are coming out to be 1200 kg. So he’s going to manipulate this and go back to 1009 Kg suppose ok. So, biasing is not allowed. The such should be unbiased. Do the research only if you you are interested.

1:00:02

take proper time. Love your thesis.

1:00:04

Love Your Work.

1:00:06

or love your article.

1:00:08

And this is the

1:00:10

last point. How to I evaluate the publisher of a journal? The journal is having a publishing house? How do you evaluate because ultimately journal is the reflection of the editor in chief, other editors as well as reviewers. So the person, the organization, the government, how

1:00:31

they are

1:00:32

playing a role.

1:00:35

Just like authors, publishers usually have

1:00:37

a bias about a particular topic or issue, just like you are having viva, while undergoing via, first you go for a background check, they are four people in the panel. First person is having this background, second person is having this background. So first person is going to ask me questions from this particular topic. Obviously, he’s having more enhanced knowledge, or he’s having more experience about that particular field. So he’s going to relate that in with your work, maybe unnecessarily, okay so that may cause a doubt. So try to do that background search as well, you can often gain an understanding of what kind of articles it publishes by reading a few of the articles in that particular journal, or maybe the particular publishing houses having more than one journals. So, you can go through all those different journals which are related to your topics, and

1:01:43

you can also go through various articles.

1:01:45

And if you find that the editorial board is biased, maybe you should not go for the articles from that particular subject.

1:01:54

Okay.

1:01:57

So this is all about todays discussion. And yesterday, someone was asking me about the statistical softwares. Now, if you see prism,

1:02:14

this one you can get maybe free of cost, but most of the others you will have to pay for them. These are good ones, but you will have to pay for the registration. However if you get some video on how to use Microsoft Excel for statistics, maybe free of cost, you can use Microsoft Excel for statistical analysis.

1:02:39

Okay. And

1:02:42

as I suggested yesterday,

1:02:44

if you are working in one particular University, maybe that university can have its own statistical software’s that may be given to you free of cost. So try that one first. Maybe it’s easy to operate as well.

1:03:01

Instead of using Microsoft Excel or

1:03:03

paying here and there.

1:03:06

Okay, so this is all about today.

0:16

I hope yesterday’s lecture was very inspiring, you were able to understand the basics. As we know today, we are going to discuss a little bit about research materials and methods in relation with research methodology all of you must have already passed your post graduation or some of you may already be in your PhD studies. So, you have gone through the process

0:48

of

0:50

these exciting synopsis writing

0:52

research paper writing or at least you go through those things on a regular basis right. So, materials and methods seem to be quite a common subject, but we will try to incorporate some new features to it, maybe that will be helpful.

1:11

Okay. So, let us start

1:17

first thing,

1:20

when you go through the format of any research article or be it thesis be it a synopsis Firstly, you have to go to introduction before that even you sometimes have to write abstract along with key words then you have to go for introduction, then comes materials and methods.

1:40

So, this thing forms a very important part

1:45

for getting the insight of the results whatever results you obtain that depends on how are you able to handle the materials and methods

1:57

alright.

1:57

So, studies methods are one of most important parts used to

2:02

judge the overall quality of the people. So, even if you are sending your research paper for the publication purpose, the editor is firstly going to look into the material and methods parts, okay, after finding the relevance of this research paper with his or her journal, he’s going to identify

2:25

how carefully you have

2:29

undertaken the study okay. So, method section should give readers enough information so that they can repeat the experiments because same thing has been done by us as well we as a student as a researcher have already gone through some previous articles resources. So as to make our understanding firm about that subject of interest, we will have also use some of their protocols, we may have modified those a little bit as

3:03

well. Right.

3:05

So,

3:07

we will just discuss few steps, how you can write an effective materials and methods in your research manuscript did

3:18

a research paper be it a thesis, okay,

3:22

same concepts apply to everything,

3:24

especially the thesis part, because that is a bigger manuscript, and it has to be perfect in

3:31

all regards.

3:34

So, we will start with the general discussion and then we will make it

3:40

specific.

3:41

So, first, the very first thing is you should start collecting whatever data you are having regarding the materials and method before you start writing the thesis or the research paper in reality, for example, the data when you decide that this is the topic of your

4:02

interest, you are going to work with this and the day you

4:05

you start arranging for the experiment itself, you should start noting down the important points Okay, you can have a separate register for that where you can find out what has to be written this is going to save a lot of your time when you are ultimately writing the overall manuscript because whatever results you may get again that will depend on how carefully you have managed your experiments. What are controls which were being used, how you compare these two things, and everything counts believe me it is basically the details the finer details, which count whenever you look at the research papers of the best journal like nature and you

4:58

compare the research journal of any

5:00

recently started publication house, you will find the basic difference here lies in the details more detail paper you will find the major okay. So, try to grab all those details. For example, you should know the compositions exact compositions like if you’re going to make KH2PO4 buffer with ph 7.6 what should be the exact composition into water or HCL or whatever it may be, what is the

5:37

person solution of HCL that

5:39

was being used to add

5:42

what gram of K2HPO4. So, these details you should know because whatever experiments you are going to perform each and every experiment is going to be different from the previous one

5:55

in some or the other regards.

5:58

Obviously, if this is the alpha amylase test and second one is beta glucosidase test obviously, even if the buffer is similar, it is not going to be exactly the same, because the activity of enzyme will depend on the surroundings All right. So, you should pay attention to individual compositions, you can get a register for yourself and start writing all these things for you. Then quantities same as composition in what quantity what thing was used was it 100

6:37

micrograms or it was hundred milligrams. If you go through some

6:45

low standard low quality papers, you will see that they do not give that complete details of materials and methods and it is somewhat very difficult for you to understand what exact procedure they have followed okay. So, in order to avoid that thing your own work,

7:05

you should give proper attention Okay,

7:11

along with that instrumental details models

7:15

even like you can see in this particular

7:18

experiment, he has also mentioned the

7:21

size of dialysis tube which has been

7:23

used

7:25

he has given proper details about what

7:28

percentage of available

7:31

sodium hypochlorite solution was used it was 0.9% which was weight to volume not volume to volume you know na differences between weight to volume % and volume to

7:43

volume percentages

7:45

Okay, similarly exact timings

7:52

with for example, you have collected this particular sample Suppose, you have collected the sample from certain trees. So, what was

8:01

the time of the day maybe the

8:05

timing of

8:06

Suppose, this is the study where you want to isolate the microorganism from various trees and you want to find out how the microbial activity in this rhizospere is getting affected by its exposure to temperature change in pH on a rainy day or

8:28

during the various phases of the day itself. So, you

8:32

will have to give exact timing Also, if you are a student of zoology and you want to find out where the birds are coming,

8:39

how they are coming. So,

8:42

exact timings exact details you should know So, that there is no

8:49

confusion with the ultimate results which you are applying okay.

8:54

So, if you have to collect the pictures, collect all sort of pictures like you obtain the sample from this particular tree, get this picture of that tree because more like what you do for your Instagram picture or what you do for your Facebook picture, you take like five or 10 selfies out of which you select the best one do the same for your experiment. So, take all sort of pictures select the best out of those and then put it into your thesis then sometimes you can find

9:31

the researchers also go for flow charts.

9:34

First they start the principle of their

9:40

experiment, then they give basic details about the experiment and sometimes they also make a very nice flow chart right. So, this is what makes it easy for the observer to understand what you are trying to say and how at which particular stage which reagent is taking part okay. So, you can take help of flow charts as well,

10:07

then formulae should be clearly mentioned at the start itself

10:14

like after each and every experiment, you should mention what is the formula for finding that particular result if there is a common formula for all those experiments, which you are explaining here, you can give that at the start and mention that using the above mentioned formula I calculated this particular result ok. So, same thing for three locations, I got it from this particular part of the village from this particular house or something exact biogeographical locations are also needed something for example, I got this sample from this particular mango tree which was located exactly at

11:03

30 degree north

11:05

altitude this

11:07

longitude this latitude.

11:10

So, all of these things can also be measured carefully.

11:16

So, this will help you to

11:21

prevent forgetting important details when ultimately you are going to write the overall manuscript like this is a good example how the author has given all the details of his or her expiry date you can see he has a told you the size was this this was the composition and what was the exact timing what was the exact temperature So, every detail he has tried to give along with proper references, okay, how it is not necessary that every time we are going to follow the reference step by step you may make certain modification. So, try to decide that that

12:07

this particular

12:10

reference was used with a bit of modification. And then after you can give your details like here you can see the sample was taken samples of shoot tissue were collected from a randomly selected healthy tree of SU Mini from Ludiana Punjab 30.9 degree North 75.85 degree east and this much elevation, but this gives the exact location also this is going to help the reader or the second person who is trying to follow your procedure from which location you got the sample and thereafter how you got the results. Okay. So, second step here becomes start with general information that applies to the entire manuscript. Like I said,

13:03

if you are going to use only one formula for

13:06

all those experiments, which are going to conduct mention that at the start or you can also get the list of all those results which you have used

13:18

throughout your experiment at the start,

13:21

you can give the list name of the chemical,

13:24

the supplier, percentage purity and so many other things, especially it becomes important when you are submitting your thesis because then you will go for viva each and every member of your panel is going to ask you

13:41

several questions from detail steps.

13:44

So, if you are confident about the details, you will be confident that you know the procedure you will know the principle behind that and you will be easily able to defend yourself. So, that is why detailing is important. For example, characteristics of the study population suppose you are a student of biodiversity and you want or zoology and you want to find out the types of birds which are present in that particular region. So, you can go for that these were the characteristics of that bird which I was looking for into this particular region or community or village and this information can be given at the start itself because if again and again in each and every experiment you keep writing I got this bird from here I got this bird from here it is going to cause confusion and it will be repeatability. So, it may not be accepted in a very good quality journal

14:46

okay like the

14:48

sources genotypes of bacterial stains or description of samples or sample sites like if you’re collecting suppose hundred trees or hundred thousand specimens from hundred different spaces, make a general table at the start itself serial number 123 400 and name of the sample name of the city or village exact sample size and all those things you can put it here then you can start being specific about your experiments.

15:24

There comes the third point

15:27

match the order in which methods are described to the order of results that was so, this comes into force when you are really writing your complete manuscript when you have already record the results. So, what you can do here first, you find out what what the results are there because you may do experiments in a seriess, but you may not get results in that particular series. So, in that first particular series support you

16:03

let me give you an answer like you are having

16:07

10 types of microorganisms which you obtain and out of which you want to look for the presence of phosphates or solublization, the presence of zinc mobilization and so many things okay, our resistance mechanism. So, if you are going to publish a paper using this data, don’t give details of this thing or this thing

16:34

automatically you will get to arrange

16:37

your materials and methods with regard to the results which are going to apply okay. And also be sure that each method you use is described even if it is a weak sentence like I was giving you the example here. Yeah, you can see this one it says he has told you that the mode of inhibition by EAEP was conducted using the modified method described by this particular researcher Okay, then he has given complete details Okay, even if it is taking around

17:13

250 words

17:14

or even if it is consuming more space, he has given all the details. Now, you can see here it is EAEP we do not know what is this, but the author must have cited this EAEP at the start it says okay. So, this practice is helpful for

17:35

transparency as well as reproducibility. So, if there is someone who wants to

17:41

take your reference and go for this, he can reproduce the results easily. fourth point is always include citations for procedures that has been described previously like this, this is the citation obviously, this you are going to give at the back in the form of bibliography or references right. Now, that will depend on the type of Institute or the type of journal but should be the exact

18:19

format of that reference but that is a separate thing.

18:22

So, if you are going to

18:26

keep details of all those processes, at the start of the

18:31

experiment itself, it is going to

18:33

help you later on for example, here you can see the name is Kazim et al suppose there is some one similar suppose it is Kabir et al and also the year seems to be same.

18:48

So, you may get confused later on.

18:50

But initially if you are having the details along with the rest of the procedure, you will not get confused and reference will not get missed. because later on whenever someone is going through your manuscript be the thesis be it sybopsis be it research paper or review article, they are going to look the first thing that all the references that have been cited at the back should also be present in the

19:21

text. So, these references you will not

19:25

miss out okay.

19:28

Then, statistical details also are very important. For example, if you just say that t test was performed, the person will not understand

19:39

okay. So, if you are using some particular

19:42

software as well for that t test

19:46

, you can

19:46

also tell him that thing you can properly mention that software and you can also write what was the origin of this software suppose you are doing your PhD in some particular university that a statistical department made itself have made a software for these type of tests, which is very common nowadays, okay. So, you can cite from where you obtain this software and how did you proceed with it. So, you can make a flowchart here then avoid discussing the pros and cons of methods, because discussion part should be taken for discussion section only. So, just give the details of the materials and methods and protocols

20:35

give the pictures

20:37

sometimes it is recommended that you give the picture of spectro photo meter or electron microscope it says it is somewhat sometimes demanded otherwise it may not be demanded

20:50

okay. So, it depends on the

20:52

advisor, the student the committee.

20:56

So, you can put

20:58

all those details, but don’t go for discussion even if you find certain research papers, who have compared to different methods

21:06

for the same

21:08

sample, they are not going to give you the details of the comparison in material and method sectionn. For example, there is a person who is trying to look for the

21:21

This is your Oh yes. So, if there is a person who is trying to

21:28

assess his protein or you can say cell structure, this is a particular type of cell which he has obtained and he wants to see the structure of cell in details using suppose sem and TEM.

21:43

So, what

21:44

he is going to do is going to give a title abstract keywords basic introduction and then he will go for Materials and methods,

21:53

where he will tell you

21:55

how he proceeded with the sample isolation then how he conducted sem, where did he conduct what type of model of sem was used, he can also provide you with the flowchart of the steps then he will go for TEM in the same way, but the discussion part will remain there for either the result and discussion portion or sometimes a separate result and separate discussion. Okay. So, you have to discuss ultimate results over there itself, where you can also compare it with some previous researches by some other researchers, okay. So, next step is to save the space by

22:40

in order to save the space,

22:42

first thing what you can do is do the listings make the tables right for example, if you’re putting out a research paper for publication, there is always a word

22:53

limit. So, you have to give each and every detail but you also

22:57

have to go for

23:00

minimum number of words. Again, if it is a paid journal, based on the number of pages, they are also going to charge you okay. So, to save the space be concise, give all the details, like in this particular thing you can see within one line he has given so many details, so, try to give all the details, but don’t repeat something. So, to cause that what you can do, you can and list all the things all the materials for those particular experiments at the start of material and Methods section is you must have seen in the research papers after the title material and methods they give two or three lines about the chemical those sorts of chemicals like it is hi media merck or they also give the list okay. So, that thing can be

24:02

because that will prevent repeatability.

24:07

Then there comes few other points it should be clear from the method section how all the data in the results section were obtainede and I said if the first step here in the result is the isolation of microorganisms. So, first step in the material and method should also be isolation of microorganisms or at least it should be second step after the first step which should be source of trees from where you obtain your microorganisms and then you isolated correct similarly

24:46

the study system should be clearly described

24:49

give all the specifications and make it also the controls should be included. Now, how many of you have done PCR polymerase chain reaction regular routine practice in the labs? So, tell me what different types of controls Do you go for during the

25:16

PCR reactions?

25:19

What are the type of PCR controls that you have undertaken? Now the thing is let me give you a brief about the procedure

25:28

just like in any the action

25:32

PCR reaction also should be given controls

25:36

Okay, let me give you an example of again. rhizobium, you know rhizobium is the one which carries out nitrogen fixation in plants right. So, rhizobium. So, this is

25:50

supposed the rhizobium species which you have

25:52

obtained from some test organism okay. So, from some tests species you have got your

26:02

rhizobium organism

26:04

and you want to find out that its DNA is similar or dissimilar to standard positive rhizobium

26:12

leguminosum

26:13

DNA or not with respect to nod region which is responsible for nodule formation okay. So, you are having performing a test into the test you have

26:25

obtained a rhizobium specie a rhizobium

26:29

culture from some unknown plant or suppose soil sample or some organism maybe okay. So, this you have obtained and you want to look for it nod genes okay via PC

26:44

r multiplication.

26:46

So,

26:48

first thing you will do is you will take a positive control

26:51

okay. So, positive control always take that particular sample which you are sure about that it is going to have that particular gene for example, rhizobium leguminosarum is definitely going to have nod gene right. So, in one of the PCR tubes you will multiply its DNA ok.

27:14

So, the test as well as positive

27:16

control they will be using

27:18

same or different primers

27:22

they will use a more different primers,

27:25

different primers, now listen No Why

27:28

should we go for different primers

27:32

we should not go for different primers because

27:36

the same reason we are trying to look for into these two species So, we are going to check for the presence of nod region. So, primary should also be specific to nod region only na and it is also rhizobium which is also rhizobium we just don’t know whether it is leguminosarum or not. So, species same that means same primers can go for this as well and this as well.

28:05

So, we are going to take same

28:06

set of primers for test as well as positive template okay and also it will show us that this is also rhizobium leguminosarum and your test sample is also rhizobium leguminosarum, if it turns out to give you positive test

28:23

then you have negative control

28:25

where

28:26

other than rhizobium any specie you can be for example, you can go for a streptococcus which is also a microorganism, but that does not give rise to nodule formation. So, again you’re going to take same set of primer,

28:48

which is not going to bind here and it is not going to give any result. So, it is going to give you the negative control for the identification then you have an amplification control. So, what does amplification control does? It is going to tell you whether the PCR situations are sufficient

29:13

to carry out the

29:15

replication process or not.

29:17

Again you can go for

29:18

any random target like you can again take the streptococcus DNA and put the primers which are not nod specific any primers you just put

29:29

and check

29:30

if streptococcus is growing or not like you can go for the housekeeping genes obviously, housekeeping jeans are going to be there in the streptococcus genome and if you give primers corresponding

29:42

to that it is going to get multiplied okay

29:46

if the reaction conditions if the PCR conditions are good enough Okay, then there is something called reagent blank reagent blank is something which is having only regular PCR ingredients like magnesium ions taq polymerase then your nucleotides and other things okay, but there should be no template it is going to tell you that if it is going to give rise to any type of result, any multiplication that means you are PCR, reagent buffer reaction conditions are contaminated and you should not consider any of the above mentioned results because we have not given any template

30:35

but it is still getting multiplied. So, what is getting multiplied

30:38

it is the contamination okay.

30:41

So, you can

30:42

you also have to give the

30:44

primers, the controls, you also have to mention the controls properly the outcomes of the study should be defined you should know before the start of the reaction what should be my results. So, those outcomes you should know

31:01

the outcome measure should be objectively validated that

31:06

just like in this case, if you are getting results in this case also that means your sample is contaminated. So, you should objectively validate across several controls and with several other Test Options, the method used to analyze the data must be statistically sound as I said it should have minimum standard deviation. Now, the standard deviation is something which you should determine based on again those tests statistical tests, but how do you find out what is the appropriate statistical data what is the appropriate standard deviation which is considerable for example, online one hand you are having a result then hundred milligram sample is getting produced on the other hand you are having a clock which is giving rise to hundred quintles of grain So, what should be standard deviation here and why should we standard deviation here obviously since the quantity is small here standard deviation also needs to be smaller for example,

32:26

hundred plus minus

32:29

1.2 milligram

32:33

here

32:34

hundred quintile It is so it can be plus minus one quintil

32:41

you do get me So, depending on the size of

32:45

data you we’re getting standard deviation will also vary it because here if we’re going to give the result of hundred quintal plus minus 0.1 Quintal

32:58

that is going to make your advisor suspicious

33:01

that he has manipulated the results okay. So, also as I said previously, citations should be given in the desired format by that particular institution or that particular research journal all materials and instruments should be identified including the suppliers name and locations like hi media Mumbai okay. Few more tips include only what is necessary for only for one repeating the experiment to know but without the kind of unnecessary details that break the flow of write as I said, if you are telling that this is the plant that was obtained from this location, so, give that data at the start itself not after every experiment, not in every experiment, you should start telling. So, this was a microorganism that I obtained from this plant that was obtained from that particular site that is not required, instead at the start you can give a table give the location give the name of the plant and make a subtitle make a shorter name for this like as one as two or anything like this, okay.

34:18

So, materials and

34:21

equipment utilized during the experiment should be mentioned throughout the procedure as they are used. So,

34:29

by this what he means is every time you should tell that

34:35

this is alpha amylase test, this is alpha glucosidase test. So, here also I used this particular buffer here also I use this particular buffer, but here the pH was this much different here the pH was this much. So,

34:52

the buffer composition you can give at the start,

34:55

but buffer smaller detailing should be given at the middle. Also, like this is a spectrophoto meter which we’re going to use. So, at the start

35:07

itself you can tell this is that particular spectro photo

35:10

meter from that company, this is that particular

35:13

model, but

35:15

in the middle it self during the process itself you should keep telling

35:19

the spectrophotometer was being used.

35:24

So, finally, it is generally recommended at materials and methods section should be written in past tense okay. So, you you have already done the research you know that it has already been done. So, the result should also be in past tense

35:42

Okay. Now, this was about the general

35:46

materials and methods

35:48

Okay, I hope these things are clear to you know,

35:52

now, but more we need to know for example, you are student of microbiology or zoology or some other basic science, you need to classify the thing that you are having or even you are a student of

36:09

biochemistry you have obtained a new protein

36:12

again you need to classify it

36:15

based on its structure based on based on it functions. So, classification and taxonomy forms a very important part during the materials and methods section itself. Now, you should know what is classification matters taxonomy taxonomy is something that is given rise by the classification. So, suppose you are having four different samples a one a two a three nd a four okay. So, based on certain criteria like hair color,

36:50

like skin color

36:53

or shape off here or whatever, maybe

36:56

you are classifying them as

37:00

different organisms. So, that is classification, but after this classification, how many groups have they formed? That is taxonomy.

37:10

So, classification is evolved mechanism by which organisms are

37:14

organized by taxonomy what we mean it is a branch of

37:18

biology that names and

37:20

groups organism according to similar characteristics. So, they have found four different groups suppose there is a fifth organism which is having similarity to this one. So, it will go into its or its taxa or domain or Kingdom phylum what ever

37:40

So,

37:45

classification is arrangement of supposed bacteria into various groups based on stereotypes anti microbial resistance or whatever you want to study nomenclature is the naming like we say physum sativum all bacillus subtilis. So, this is the nomenclature which is mainly binomial genus and strain genus and species after species there comes strain so, this is usually genus and species Pisum is genus sativum is species

38:20

okay then there is sometimes one more thing like

38:25

Okay lensculinaris

38:42

and then it comes something like medik

38:48

I say this is genus, this is species, What is this thing?

38:54

What is medicus here Anyone

39:11

sometime it is like crl sometime it is like LINNAE I’m giving you the hintsYes, it is not actually author it is actually the scientists who named it like Karlus manias medicus is also the name of the scientists actually, it is a big name, I think it was a Russian scientists, so they are having big names. So, this is the name of the scientist who had given this particular classification okay. So, this is not author and this is also not strain. So, first comes Genus then species then comes subspecies or they may be strain Okay. Then identification is of practical use to distinguish certain organisms from others, which gives rise to classification, nomenclature and ultimately the next one is science of classification, identification, nomenclature and making of a whole system okay. So, how do we do the classification? Like if any one of you is a student of microbiology he would go for bergis is manual right? But going through bergis manual is going to be a tedious task until unless you are having a software for that right. So, there are certain things called taxonomy

40:47

taxonomy keys, do you know anything about these

40:52

a simple and useful tool

40:56

that was previously manual, but now again this automatically using these software’s You can find these software’s online. Okay. So a simple and one of the most useful tools available to scientists trying to identify an unknown organism, taxonomy keys are useful tools guiding researchers to whats the known name of an organism. So, this is an unknown organism, considering its various features and compare it with all those organisms, you will come to know to which organism does it belong. However, all taxonomy keys are not created equally. For example, we see that all the plants of the Great Lakes or argentinian mono, Argentinian monocot, but that doesn’t make any sense Instead, it is important to pick all those qualities which you want to find them. So, let me give you an example like I was telling these other different software’s which are available. So, the tools for getting these software’s are available on databases like this, you can say this is a database file bought from this particular University, you have to create username and password and then you can check your newly found organisms, based on already collected information in those databases. Like you have this one which is called expert three previously use or expert to So, all of these are having databases, which are having information from various scientists various sources, which you can use to compare your sample. Now, how are you going to look into each and every sample individually each and every research individually, so data bases Are there it is automated as well, like let me just explain a little bit. So, this is an identification key either print based or computer aided devices are there, obviously print based is going to be hectic, so Computer Aided automated systems are better like these software’s So, you can identify any type of organisms or any types of things even because you are having details okay. So, these are the certain keys keys keys to a lock okay. So, there are two basic keys dichotomous key and polychates . So, both of them are having their different strategies while in case of dichotomous keys what you do you get two options and based on two options, you compare yoursample with it and then you go for either one of them. However, in case of poly chaetes what you do, you take your samples, you take your sample, and you compare it with a lot of different informations about several different samples, okay. So, if you find this characteristic similar to this one, you discard these two and then you proceed with this similar type of identification, let me explain like dichotomous key as the name suggests two things are there, okay. So, it always gives two mutually exclusive choices in parallel statements, which allows the user to determine the identity of items using a sequence of alternative choices. For example, here you see you are having a suppose bean? So, you will look for the seeds, if the seed matches with round one the answer to your So, the question is that your seed is a soyabean seed well, if it does not match the round seed criteria, then the second criterion as well. So, if the seed is oblong again, you are having two choices, if they are white, then they can be northern beans or if they are black, they can be black. So, you have two options round or have long, if it is round, it is soybean if it is oblong, again, you are having two choices, either white seeds or black seeds, it is white seed your answer is your sample is northern

45:48

similarly,

45:51

so that you can see here, something is written as couplet, what is a couplet a pair of standard statements which is seed round seed oblong, that is called couplet and each half of the couplet is a lead. So, this is a lead and this is the second lead. So, it is leading you to some results. So it is a lead Okay, at each couplet of a dichotomous key the user is presented with two choices about a specific character present in the group of organisms right here in this lead, this is the character in this lead, this is the character. So, sometimes the characters are quantitative for example, measurements suppose 50 kgs 30 kgs, something like this units and sometimes the characters are qualitative, like oblong seed round seed white seed black seed. So, these are couplets and leads now what is this numerical key and alphabetical key when you write it like one two, then it is numerical, if you write it like a B, and it becomes alphabetical and the thing is, do not ever go for the answers based on only one observation, even if you are carrying off any lab experiment, you at least go for duplicate or teiplicates right. So, apply the same criteria always select a lot of seeds or lot of samples from your population and then try each and every key and get the result and doctors. So, based on that thing, as I said you can have new numerical key for the dichotomous keys or you can alphabetical keys as dichotomous. Similarly, you can also have other types like pictorial key where pictures are given and you can look at the pictures and come here they can be box type of keys where boxes are given like monera is having no nucleus protesta having nucleus plant is having autotrophicc mode and Annamalia and fungi are having heterotrophic mode. So, these are single cells, these are more than one cell these are mobile and these are immobile or you can have circular type of keys or you can have branching type of keys you can have these which are also having brackets or you can have any key which is not having any bracket it is one it is to it is three it is4 head is 1234. But again this one then for 2this first this second, first second and so on okay, so, there are various options indented is simply space a tab has been given. So, based on the looks, dichotomous key can be having either of these types and all these keys you can find online using those things.okay

49:31

Then

49:33

it is explaining the same thing as a user makes a choice about a particular characteristic of an organism, he or she is led to a new branch or a new couplet of the key each couplet provides characteristics that become progressively more specific until the final step is reached and identification is reached okay like here it was only two step here it can be multi step like once cell two cell autotrophic heterotrophic mobile im mobile.okay

50:05

like this

50:07

followed correctly keys will lead you to the correct name of an organism or object. Similarly, dichotomous keys can be developed to identify anything and any sort of classification. That means if you are a researcher who has years of experience on to the same thing, suppose you are a microbiologist and you are regularly working on the microorganisms So, you can also develop your own keys because it is also possible that when you are working in some particular environment, you may get those microorganisms which are not present any where else so, you have to develop a key for yourself, you need to devise your own. So that can also be developed based on similar manners. So, as I was saying second type is quality of keys, which is involving the process of eliminations like these are the tools which are used to help identify unknown objects or species just like previous keys these keys are generated using interactive computer programs. So, these are also so the user is presented with a series of choices that describe features of the species that they wish to identify for example, you are having a flower now, you will have to judge this flower again based on several criteria, but

51:36

suppose you are having a flower Now, first thing is select for flower character

51:45

now, there may be a lot of keys given at this step think red, yellow orange, you choose the flower color, suppose your flower color is yellow. So you will select this one and these three will be rejected

52:03

okay then write down the possible pollination system. So, you right here yellow

52:11

then you write second thing what type of pollination is present is it with the help of bee is it with the help of birds or some other source or maybe it is the water or maybe air So, then you will have to find out what type of pollination system your flower is looking for. Suppose it is via bees then you will search some other feature whether it gives you nector or not yes or no. So, nectar yes or no then similarly, you will keep on going for more than one characters for your sample one after the other and together they will give you the result that is the dandelion is there which is yellow in color and it is bee polinated. However, in the previous case, each observation was associated with something else here all the observations are separate from each other right. Like here we saw it is a seed which is either round or oblong if it is round then it is soyabean but if it is oblong then you have two choices, but here you just have two choices out of which you keep on selecting okay. So, basically for dichotomous you have to go in a series here all the observations are separate this or this this or this this or this this or this, you select this this this or this based on those four observations, what is the sample. So, again, the user is presented with a series of choices that describes features of the species they want to identify the user then checks off a list of characteristic present in the organism they wish to study, the program looks to match those characteristic with all the species they can possibly match like here I am just giving you two or three options, but there may be rain there may be air there maybe anything else. So, if a species does not have that character state, it is eliminated from the list the more characters states listed the most species that are eliminated okay. So, I was giving you only the example of one you can have multiple samples at once and you can keep checking them all togetther it is more like a high throughput mechanism, multiple options, multiple samples all okay. So, this thing continues until only one species is left if all went well and the keys fit your group of organisms that is the name of this species you have located even the best keys have their limitations. So, make sure you verify your identification using multiple tools. For example, like first thing what you do here is you are having four species ABCDOkay, now, what you want to do you want to first check them all for Flower colour. Now, these are the four species which you have to compare with your specimen is yellow in color right. So, first you have to check for the species which is yellow in colour okay it is red blue, green, yellow. So, these three are me right. So, this D may be one of its possible specie options, then you go for flower signs suppose this is now 1234 next set of species with which you are going to compare it. So, if first species is the one which is having large size second is even larger, third is small fourth is even smaller. So, if this is also large and this is also large then this one matches with this one and these three are eliminated So, second option you put here is first option. First is D second is one for these two features match with this, maybe these two species are similar to each other, Are you getting me or not. So, you have to look for a number of different species during polycle and compare their

57:06

characteristics with the characteristics of your own specimen there comes another important concept this was only about taxonomic classification. Now, whatt is the size of a sample that should be checked it should not be very small it should not be very large a small sample is not considerable, when it is not sufficiently powered to detect a difference between the groups and the study may turn out to be false in negative suppose okayso, I’m saying that this is a city into the city, but what do you want to find out you want to find out what is the major of occupation of the citizens. So, if you are taking sample only from this population and not from these regions, so, that is not going to give you a fair idea of the of the occupation of all the citizens in this whole big city small sample size is not going to be valuable here instead you should take if you are going to take only small sample size again You should go for this region this region this region this region this region and this region. So at least six samples should be collected from similar from similar dimensions about five meters square hear five meters square here and five meters okay, but a very large sample is also not recommended sometimes because sometimes if a small sample is giving you enough information, why should you ask for a bigger sample? Why should you up for so much wastage of time and money right then, if you are a physician and you are trying to look for volunteers, that means more and more subjects you will try to take out suppose there is a disease suppose there is a okay somebody there is a doctor who is trying to look for alternative therapy for cancer suppose there 100 people hundred volunteers are coming to Him To find out the treatment. So, what he does, he’s just randomly dividing them into 10 groups of 10 each and he is trying 10 different doses or 10 different treatments on all those 10 . The thing is if you are taking only 10 people or five people that is a small group, okay, if one of the treatment does not go well of course, those one group of people which may be five or 10 people, they may face side effects, at least you will be able to help at least those 10 people now, but if you’re going to have a sample size of suppose 500 people for each group, if someone if that dose is lethal, all of them are going to die, how are you going to tackle the situation right. So, in those conditions, very large sample size is not recommended. Similarly,

1:00:32

okay.

1:00:34

Similarly, like the same situation to take is if you are taking 10 people in each group and one or two treatments are not working fine. Maybe later on you can shift the same patients to some other Those are some other drug that will do, but there are 500 people and they are treated in the same way their drug is not working properly. So, they will have faith issues they will lose faith in you and they will consider that you are treating them as objects okay. So, lower population size you can somehow managed but large population size large sample size you will not be able to manage in this particular situation like

1:01:22

Okay, so, we will quickly go across certain methods, how you carry out the

1:01:30

protocols for isolation identification of microorganisms, insects, animals and how you manage all that microbiology is the study of microorganisms which may be algae, fungi virus bacteria, right. So, how are they growing?

1:01:52

Like you can have either

1:01:56

isolation from this some particular sample maybe soil on you may be having air or you may have to test water or some liquid. So, similar protocols are adopted I’m giving you very basic idea like there are I said you are having viruses but viruses cannot be directly cultivated. So, I’m not taking them into consideration, but you are having bacteria which grow well nutrients you are having fungi like aspergillus nigeriawhich grow on PDF which is potato dextrose agar then there is sabrode agar which is good for yeast like Candida okay. So, what you do whatever be the medium be the sample be it soil air or water ultimately, if we’re trying to look for the presence of overall bacterial size, overall fungal size and overall candidal size you can go for a general protocol again what you will do like let me compare the three methods you are going to first make three types of activities obviously, you are going to make them in triplicates only, so three plates of this three plates of this three plates of this for yeast dilution and how are we going to make the dilutions if your sample is soil you are going to take 0.1 gram of soiland put it into saline solution or whatever buffer solution that is required or it may be water itself sometimes okay. So, that is going to give you a dilution of 10 days to power minus two why 10 raised to minus two because already it was one gram It was 0.1 gram which is equivalent to one into 10 rasised to power minus one right when you put it into another 10 ml of sample it is going to be one into 10 raised to power minus two sample that from that ten raised to minus two again, you are going to take 0.1ml and put it into 9.9 that is going to give you 10 raised t power minus four again you’re going to take 0.19 ml from ten raised to minus four and put it into 9.9 m I of water saline solution or buffer that is going to give rise to ten raised to minus six dilutionOkay, this is the case of soil. Similarly, you can take liquid sample 0.1 ml, which is already one into 10ten raised to power minus one dilution, you put 0.1 ml into 9.9 ml to make total 10 ml of the solution which is going to have 10 raised to power minus two concentration of your liquid. Similarly, again you are going to go for ten raised to power minus four to ten raised to power minus six dilutions okay. So, overall you are going to make the dilutions of up to ten raised to power minus six. And

1:05:20

you are going to put individual dilution

1:05:26

in the form of 0.1 ml solution to three different types of petriplates PDA agar, nutrient agar, sabrode agar That means, if you are having ten raised to minus six dilution, that means you’re having 10 ml of this out of this 10 ml you’re going to take 0.6 ml into nine right. So, you are going to take 0.1 ml and put it into three petriplate so 0.1 here 0.1 here 0.1 here of PDA P NA 0.1 mlhere for a second replicationof NA and third replication 0.1 here for sabrode 0.1 ML for second sabrode and 0.1 ML Of third sabrode so out of 10 raised to minus six dilution you are going to make nine plates for bacteria three for fungi and three for Candida Okay, say you do here same you can go for ten raised to power minus four and ten raised to power minus two and you should know what are the outcomes what should be the number of colonies which you are going to count now, if I state generally in general a plate should not be having more than 300 colonies of bacteria to count otherwise it is rejected okay then why is it discarded is washed away or simply thrown away simply similarly a plate should not have more than 300 colonies of Candida because Candida also looks like bacteria only it is very small pin drop size colony dew drop type of colony this is then for yeast also for the fungus you should have not more than 30 colonies per plate standard Plate I amtalking about you have seen Petri plates I suppose that I am talking about So, obviously after closing the lids you have to incubate it there and look for the results the next day or the third day. So, similar things happen for your sample of water as well or liquid as well. Now, if you want to go for air samples what you have to do again make the triplicates triplicate plates for these three and when the agar is solidified then open the dish in that particular environment in which you want to check microbial load okay for 20 minutes allow the microorganisms to sit on to the surface after that you just cover the lid put it in an inverted

1:08:18

position into the

1:08:21

incubators BOD at 37 degree which is going to provide it appropriate humidity appropriate temperature and within 24 hours you will get count of bacteria and within 48 to 72 hours yeast and fungi will be clearly visible in fact yeast also sometime close within 24 hours okay by what is bacteria and what is the plural of bacteria

1:08:49

what is the plural of bacteria

1:08:57

no bacteria is itself plural

1:09:01

bacterium is the singular when you have one type of thing that is bacterium one cell plural is itself bacteria same confusion is there with media medium is singular media is plural okay

1:09:28

Okay. So, this is how you can isolate. Now, obviously after isolation you’re going to get a lot of different types of micro organisms on the surface of petri plate. So, you will have to distinguish on your own based on other taxonomic keys which we have discussed previously or whatever information you are already having right. Suppose this is the one that you desire pick it up in the presence of sterilize condition which is laminar airflow in front of Bunsen burner using sterilized loop and streak it on to another plate where only one type of colony will grow from one typical cell. So, that is the purification

1:10:11

later on

1:10:12

that can be transported to low temperature conditions like refrigeration in a tube or at low temperature freezer or in liquid nitrogen or you can also go for lyophilization okay

1:10:39

. Let me just complete this one

1:10:44

Just let me just explain this one rest we will discuss tomorrow along with the next topic okay.

1:10:52

So, I was going to discuss this

1:10:55

how do you culture microorganisms

1:11:01

culture part first you have seen the isolation part from soil water and air then I told you you can store it here there and their culturing is again getting multiple copies of the same

1:11:18

right, So, you can see that whatever

1:11:20

culture is there, when you are transferring it from one plate to another place or one plate to a test tube or test tube to plate, you have to prevent contamination for which you are having standard protocols, then genetic changes also have to be prevented like mutation, you should not keep basically placing it under the UV light right. Then along with all these things, you can also store your sample in

1:11:54

the form of dry spores

1:11:56

do you know what is a dry spore?

1:11:59

So, reproduction and survival both are assisted by spores. So, in the form of spores also you can store them like fungus can be stored actinobacteri and bacteria can be stored and then mineral oil like you are having a slant into which you are having a culture of microorganisms. So, over this you pour the sterilize mineral oil

1:12:24

up to hour

1:12:27

support this is the end of your slant here to here it should be one centimeter

1:12:34

above one centimeter

1:12:37

to the slant height, you should pour the sterlized mineral oil and then you can put

1:12:42

it there into the low freezer liquid nitrogen it self okay and there is something called lyophilizer Have you gone through this lyophilization is freeze drying where suppose this is the sample This is a sample of your microorganism or anything else that is put into a round bottom flask suppose it is 200 ml culture how it is 200 ml culture suppose you are having a sample which is Present in petri dish you want to mass multiply it. So, in the petri dish it was growing on solid medium, but then you will transfer it to liquid media

1:13:07

suppose 200 ml medium is there

1:13:23

into which you put the sample and allow it to grow under sterilize conditions for few days.

1:13:33

it is very common nowadays. So, you should try to use better equipments and instruments that will give you a hand on expertise and that will also be added to your

1:13:44

CV. So, that may help you later on during your research career or maybe Academic carriers itself.

1:13:52

So, you are getting a suppose 200 ml culture you directly put this culture into

1:14:02

the water. So, you put

1:14:07

this sample suppose it’s 200 sample along with 200 ml sample you also mixed 200 ml off your

1:14:16

ok leave this part I will just give you this thing

1:14:20

suppose this is your sample which is 200 ml out of which you want to take out only the bacteria.

1:14:29

So, what you can do you just

1:14:30

directly put this sample here in the round bottom flask

1:14:34

and put put it fix it

1:14:37

tightly to the lyophilizer where the temperature is really low at least minus 130 degree Celsius is there. So, whatever liquid is there it will ultimately go for

1:14:49

drying actually

1:14:52

liquid will get converted to water will get converted to ice and because of the sucking action of lyophilizer all that ice will be sublimated to gas from solid to liquid condition it will get converted solid to gass condition it will get converted and that gas will be set up by this instrument apparatus itself. So, you will be left with only the cells those cells which is basically the spores can be store in this manner okay.

1:15:30

So,

1:15:33

okay also you can so, this is called lyophilization or freeze drying other than that you can go for spray drying that is you take your sample and spray it on to sterilize surface where your sample is undergoing dryness because of the air okay and then you collect the specimen which is inside there is something alsocalled fluid bed drying

1:16:01

which is complicated to explain So,

1:16:03

I have given a link here this is a YouTube

1:16:06

video which will show you how fluid bed drying helps to save the cultured microorganism to preserve

1:16:16

the cultured microorganism

1:16:17

okay. So all of these are preservation techniques at this you can check the fluid by drying here

1:16:25

using the same okay so

1:16:27

since we are out of time I think I should stop it here itself.

1:16:34

Okay, then Okay, then see you tomorrow. Good evening.

0:18

Good evening students. Am I audible? Ok, so today’s the introductory class for research methodology. Okay, now you’re at the helm of doing research, joining into PhDs, okay, in the months to come. So, this plays a very, very, very vital part. So, how do you plan your research? How do you formulate a hypothesis? How do you do the review of literature? What is the methodology that has to be followed?

0:57

So, this research methodology, it plays a very, very important and significant part. So, if you’re clear in all these concepts, it will definitely help you in your research work. Okay. So, we are covering all the major portions of research methodology. So you have introductions, scope and significance of research methodology, review of literature. So, what is the correct way of reviewing literature? How do you collect articles? See when you get into your PhD, so this is one of the basic steps. The first few months maybe very, very boring because you’ll have lots of literature to work with, you’ll have to read loads and loads of paper, scientific papers, and believe me, it’s a very big gap, when you just go straight from the M.Sc into research. Now you need to bridge that gap. You need to bridge that gap, because see in M.Scs what we are doing? We’re just studying all the books, very few of us actually get an interest to study the journal articles. Okay, but when you enter into research, so all the big big names, PLOS, Nature reviews, everything you’re expected to just study and bring up something, bring up some creative ideas, some of your own hypothesis. So, all this comes at once, okay, then you have the research material tips on reviewing a research article. So, how do you write a research proposal? So, we’re going to speak upon the demonstration of writing a research proposal. Tips on conducting research in the lab. Very, very important things that should be kept in mind. So, before you enter any lab setup, you should be well versed with what you are going to face. Writing a research article, thesis submission and reasons for article rejection. So, what are the primary reasons? You have done a very good work and you have some beautifully executed experiments, but then every time your article gets rejected. So, what is the reason for article rejection and how we can prevent articles from getting rejected?

3:27

Let’s start with what actually is research methodology? So, what is it? So, it’s basically a defined set of criteria. So, it’s a procedure or technique, which is used to identify, select, process and analyze information about a topic. Okay, so, what you do? If you take a research paper, you evaluate the study, so, how valid it is, how reliable it is? As you, you know, go into the depth of papers, you’ll get an understanding of these concepts. So, research methodology is nothing but the science of how research is done scientifically. How research is done in a proper manner? So, there are various steps in the research methodology, you analyze the research problems, you analyze the logic behind the research problem. So, this basically provides a blueprint which other researchers follow. Now big thing that what is actually research?

4:45

So, what is research? While doing research, what is the aim? Our aim is to discover some new knowledge. Okay, or to seek answers to some unanswered questions. Questions, which have not been answered. So, some new knowledge is discovered or some new questions should be answered. So, you can also have like a basic research, there are various categories. So, you can have basic research or you can have applied research. Now, what is basic research, you want to know, you want to understand, a topic, further, okay. So, you want to have a fundamental knowledge, a fundamental understanding of that particular topic. So, you go into great depth of a particular topic. The other is applied research. So, what is applied research? Something that can be applied, some drugs that can be used in medicine, okay in treating patients, some new drugs, some new formulations. Something that can be used for. Okay, both basic and applied research is very, very important. There is sort of a hype that is created that everyone goes for Applied Research, but then when basic research is not there, then we do not have the knowledge to apply that to the applied research things.

6:18

So, basic research is also equally important. So, it’s not that one topic can be specifically categorized, under basic research and the other categorized under applied research, it’s not like that. So you have a very thin demarcation which is there, but all this is not that important, what is important that you are doing research and you are seeking answers to some of the unanswered questions. Okay, so, what is the primary aim other people, the scientific community, they’re able to learn something from your work, they’re able to gain something from your work, they’re able to learn some new things from your work, which is not present in the existing literature. So, what are you doing you’re adding up something to the existing repertoire of knowledge.

7:18

So, basic research gives you an advancement of the amount of knowledge, applied research, advancement of technology, application development, utility of applications, and these all things come together to improve the quality of life, okay, all these improve the quality of life.

7:48

So, these are the various types of scientific research. So, you select the area, one of the most important things, you select the area, in that area in that wide area you select a particular topic. You create a research question, some crude area which has not yet been investigated or something is missing in those portions. So, you select those areas, you search for research question, you formulate a hypothesis, you design a proper study, okay, and then you do all the experiments, whatever is there, if there’s fieldwork involved, if there is experimentation labwork which is involved. All that is done, the collection of data is done, interpretation of the results and then reporting of the work is done.

8:54

So, what is the research process? Identification of a topic and raise a research question. Okay. So, what is a good research question? You should, see this is the most important and vital part – what you are selecting for your studies, what is your research question? So, it should be such a topic which has no answer Okay, or it does not have a very good and valid answer in any literature, that is why literature review is one of the most important things, because that is what is giving you the idea of what topic you are selecting for research, because the topic of research your topic of research is going to directly influence the number of paper publications

9:45

Okay, it’s no use of doing ‘re’-search in literally terms. Re-search means old wine in a new bottle. Okay, so, there is no point in doing these things, ultimately, what happens, the papers gets rejected. So, the research question, the research topic, that should be very, very particular hypothesis formulation, one of the first steps, so, this offers answer to the research question okay. So, what is done, you formulate a hypothesis based on your answer okay. So, based on your answer, you formulate a hypothesis and then work according to that. You design experiments to test the hypothesis and then you draw conclusions, you repeat the experiments as many times as possible. Okay. So, this is all the research process, now, you have various research methods in this. So, you have like exploratory research, where you identify and frame a new problem, you have constructive research. So, in this you construct a new solution, something should be novel about that particular thing. So, you construct a new solution to a problem, you have empirical research. So, you evaluate and compare the existing solutions. You can also have a method, like some process is taking 10 steps, okay, but you design a method, in which it takes only five steps. So, that is something which is new, okay. So, that, that also is very important. Some very new things can be patented also, like new steps, new processes, they can also be patented. So, these are various types of research. Application – from the viewpoint of application, you have pure research and applied research, from the viewpoint of objectives, you have descriptive research, you have exploratory research, okay, correlation research, explanatory research. Inquiry mode – you have quantitative research and qualitative research. So, these are various types of research.

12:16

These are some types of research questions, some basic question that comes into the mind when you decide to create a hypothesis. Exploratory – So, what’s on there? Okay, what’s on there? So, what is the new thing that can be done. Descriptive, what does it look like? How does it work? So, these are some of the basic questions that comes into mind. Evaluative research, how does, how well does a method solve a problem, whether you can identify a particular method that will be more suitable for that problem, okay, you can devise a more shorter method, a more significant method, a more accurate method, a more inexpensive method, anything that should be novel, is something which you have contributed okay and that goes into your publications. Explanatory – So, why does something happen, the way it is? Why does it move straight or why does it move diagonally? Why does something happen? Corrected models, what could happen if we did some, if we did this, if we add this, Okay, that is predictive research, these are some of the basic models of research.

13:36

Research question is very important. So, you should have a basic understanding about what you are going to do. So, whoever the invigilator is, whoever is the guide, So, you make sure that there is a research question, there is a valid research question. The question is clear and specific. And that question is reflecting the objectives of the study.

14:16

It cannot be answered in simple terms. If something is there, which we can answer by common sense, so that becomes like very common, there is nothing unique in that. It has no answer in the literature. So, that is why exhaustive literature studies is done, because there is no use of repeating what actually exists okay. So, it should have no answer in the literature. Finding an answer to the question will solve or at least help in solving the problem to be studied. So, it can help completely or it can help a part, it can help in solving a part of the problem. Okay. So, these all basic things should be very clear.

15:08

How do you select the research area? So, what is the criteria for selection of the research area? So, you have lots of areas. Now, selection of a research area depends on who the researcher is? What is the researcher’s background. So, if you are very good in molecular biology or immunology, that depends on your background, because your whole expertise and knowledge is going to come handy into that. So, selection of the topic of research or the broad area of research is based on the researcher’s speciality, interest, scientific background, experience, all these are very very important, but then lots of times you also have – like you have nanotechnology, lot of chemistry thing is required in there. A lot of biotechnologists are doing good work in nanotechnology. So, you also have like cross disciplines, subjects which are also taken up, but then, if you have an experience, if you have a research topic, which is your expertise, which is your speciality, it does give you an upper edge. Okay, and again the research area, very importantly depends on the actual need for research in this area. So, is research actually required in that area, is really important that something needs to be done and available resources, whatever resources are available. Priority of a research topic depends on impact on health, magnitude, seriousness, preventability, curability. So, if suppose you’re taking something which has an impact on health, so, all these things should be considered, all these things should be considered. Now, whatever is the proposed study, remember one thing, in any experiment or in any study, always a more inexpensive form of the experiment is always preferred, a more economical form is always preferred over the others.

17:34

So, the proposed study, whatever the proposed study is there, care should be taken that it is feasible, okay, it is feasible, it is cost effective and applicability of the results, okay, the results are applicable as per formations and very important the results should always be reproducible. Suppose, you have sent the paper for review, now, this generally does not happen, that the reviewer is going to actually repeat the experiment, to see whether the result is coming or not. This rarely happens. I haven’t heard of this till date. But then because when you write a paper when you publish a paper, it is there in the circulation and people repeat your experiments, and if the results are not there, then there is a big question mark on your results. So, this thing should not be there.

18:46

Good laboratory practices and quality control. So, what are the good laboratory practices? So, good laboratory practices is nothing but how you do your work, safely. First priority is the individual’s health. Okay, that is the first priority. So, this is an organizational process and the conditions under which a study is planned, performed, monitored, recorded, achieved and reported. Okay, so this all comes under GLP or the good laboratory practice. GLP is very important. It’s an FDA regulation. So, it doesn’t simply cover the lab safety things. Okay. So, it’s not just some lab safety thing, is a small part of GLP. Why GLP is important? you need to develop quality test data. There should be mutual acceptance of the data, very importantly, there should not be any duplication of the data. Avoid technical barriers, protection of human health and the environment. So a very plain emphasis is laid on the protection of human health and equal emphasis is laid on the protection of the environment.

20:30

Because a lot of chemicals, most of the chemicals, if they are not disposed in a correct manner, they can cause a lot of harm to the environment. So care is taken for the proper disposal of the chemicals and various reagents that are routinely used. Now, why was the GLP created? What was the reason for it? So there is a history behind that. In the 70s, in the 1970s, FDA became aware of many, many cases of poor laboratory practices. Okay, so when they did investigations into that, so they found that there were a lot of fear fraud going on fraudulant activities, there was a lot of poor lab practices, which was there, duplication of the data, fabrication of the data, all these things were there. For example, some of the equipments were not calibrated. So, when you do not have the equipment which is calibrated to the standard form, so because whatever test sample you’re taking, it is going to take the standard reference sample. So, eventually, you’re getting the wrong results, if the equipment is not calibrated, Incorrect, inaccurate accounts of the actual lab studies and inadequate test systems. So, all these systems were widely practiced, there was no regulation. So, that is why you had GLP which was created. Ok, now very important example was the Industrial biotest Lab. Okay, so, Procter and Gamble and all big, big companies, they ran their test in this lab. Okay, so, Procter and Gamble, we know, it’s a very, very renowned company, for the cosmetics and all. So, what was discovered, that mice that they had used to test cosmetics, like the lotions and deodorants, these mice had developed cancer and they had later died. So, this was a very, very surprising discovery, which was made. So, what this lab did, they just, you know, threw away the dead mice and they, they just falsified the data, that the products were good for human consumption, there was no ill effect.

23:19

So, when this thing was discovered, then the persons who were involved in falsifying the data, they had to serve jail time, because see something is going to cause cancer and these people because just because of some money, they were falsifying data and they had nothing with the persons who could have got cancer due to the exposure to these cosmetics. So, that was the turning point. And that was when GLP came into picture very, very strictly. So GLP, it makes sure that the data submitted are a true reflection of the results that are obtained during the study, very, very important. Whatever result is obtained that is what should be reflected in these studies, no falsification no fabrication of the data. Whatever is there, whether it is positive result or a negative result – result is a result, that is what my supervisor personally used to tell me.Do not just think that you’ll get positive results, okay, negative results, they are also results. Okay, that is also something, lots of fabrication incidents that have happened, lots of things and lots are still happening, but then you know, you have your own own moral conscience that is there, especially in things which is directly affecting human health, which is directly related to someone’s condition – suppose a drug, cosmetics, anything which is used. There is something which is known as ethics. It all depends on the student. So, that was a very famous thing, it was there in the papers, it happened with Johnsons. So, who do we believe? Such a branded name, and that too something which is dealing with babies. One of the very important reasons for it, is to just you know, randomly publishing papers, okay the pressure of publishing papers, that very often leads to these things. And unfortunately, this is there in India, the pressure of publishing papers is a lot more in India than in the outside okay. So, that pressure is very high. So GLP also make sure that the data is traceable. So, whoever is publishing the papers, that data is traceable. Promotes international acceptance of the test. These are all the basic objectives of GLP. Scope – So, you have non clinical safety testing of test items, pharmaceutical products, pesticide products, cosmetics, viterinary drugs, food and feed additives, industrial chemicals, all these safety testing of the items are done, okay so, this is one of the main things of GLP. So, these are the GLP principles. To test facility organization and personal, quality assurance program, facilities, apparatus, material and reagents, the test systems standard SOPs – SOP is the standard operating procedures, performance of the study, reporting of study results, storage and retention of records and materials, these are some of the GLP principles which is there. Now coming to the SOPs which is one of the very important and basic things of GLP. So, what is SOP? It’s a written written procedure for a laboratory program. So, these are specifically protocols, how the experiments are carried on. So, these SOPs what they do, all the steps are mentioned in a chronological order, from first to the last. So, how much of the buffer is added, how much of a specific chemical is added, what are the steps, so, if you have to maintain the pH or you have to centrifuge it, all these are written in a chronological order. So, anyone who is repeating the experiment, they will be able to just reproduce it. So, you have SOPs, they’re written to explain how the procedure is supposed to work, in minute details. Again, cleanliness, very very important. Control laboratories and equipment should be kept clean, in accordance to the written cleaning schedules. All laboratory personels, they should wear clean protective clothing, which is appropriate to the duties which is being performed. Waste material disposal, very very important, because as I’ve already told, every reagent, every buffer or whatever chemical you use, that should be disposed off properly. Keep the workplace clean and uncluttered, Do not get distracted at work by other people. Premises – again the premises is important as in, it should be of very you know clean, ordered, traffic should not be there.

30:09

Design and Construction should prevent entry of rodents and insects. Interior surfaces of walls, floor, ceilings, should be smooth and free from cracks. Temperature, relative humidity should be appropriate for various design functions. Okay, so, all these things should be maintained. Now again, you have Animal House okay. So, Animal House should have the approval of the committee. See whenever animals are kept, whenever animals are kept, there you have lots of ethical issues that comes in okay. So animal, they should be kept properly, all the maintenance should be done properly, all the animals which used for the experiments, they are taken on record, whatever the animals are there. In the case of animal studies, they should be a separate facility for the instrumentation, for the chemical analysis, micro labs sterility reference sample or the control samples, so all these things should be carefully taken care of. Now, whoever is involved in doing work, so, they should be adequately trained, they should be adequately educated. Now, a person is appointed head of laboratory. So, this person who is appointed head of the laboratory, they should be responsible for the maintenance of the SOPs, so that everything is written and documented properly. Organizing the audits, follow up of corrective actions, investigation of technical complaints. So, everything goes in, whoever is appointed the head. So, everything goes in there, okay, and he’s basically responsible for maintaining and safe guiding the labs. Reagents – see, when you go into a laboratory, the first thing that you notice will be the innumerable number of reagents that are kept on the shelf Okay, now, it is very important whatever buffer you’re preparing whatever reagent you’re using, they should be dated there should be a proper date on that. So that you will be able to know whether it is fresh, it should be used or not, what type of reagent it is. So, whatever reagent is there, they should be dated upon preparation and they should be properly labeled for identification. Reagents made – they should be prepared by competent persons. Labels on the reagent bottle should indicate concentration, sanitization factor, shelf life, storage conditioned, data of the preparation, data or re-standardisation, signature of the chemist who has prepared it. So all these things should be mentioned on the reagents Okay, reference standards and working standards should be dated so, whatever reference standards is there, whatever working standards is there, they should also be properly dated okay, and they should be stored at proper conditions. Labeling is very very important, labeling with date. okay, simply if you label without the date, then to it is useless. Equipments.

33:57

So, these are very very small things, but these are very very important things. Okay, this, I’m telling you, my personal experience very very small things but very, very important. So, you have laboratory instruments and equipments, they should be serviced, they should be calibrated, because that is what is going to serve as standards, okay. So, they should be proper because you are comparing it with the particular standards, okay. Separate records should be maintained for each one of them. Servicing, calibration date should also be mentioned on them. Generally what is done in the laboratory, because there are many instruments, so, the instruments are divided among the students, okay. So, two three students can take care of like five six instruments or important instruments HPLC, two persons should look after them. So, that you know, the calibration dates, the servicing dates all should be recorded. Separate room under temperature control and humidity. So, you should have written operating instructions, they should be available, they should be displayed for each instrument and generally for new instruments, for very sophisticated instruments, new students, new persons, they are not allowed. So, every time there is a person who helps you to explain the instrument Okay, how to use an instrument, then records, whatever record is maintained for that instrument, it should have the name of the instrument, manufacturers name, manual model number, list of the spares and accessories, whatever is present for that particular instrument. Defective instrument should be withdrawn from use, untill the fault has been rectified. Sampling – samples should have a proper representative of the bulk product. Sample container again it should be properly labeled – batch number, manufacturer date, expiry date, name of manufacturer, everything should be there, and whatever the sampling instrument is there, equipment is there, it should be cleaned after each and every use and it should be stored separately from other laboratory equipments. Okay, so, whatever is the written SOPs, if the SOPs are written properly, they should include the messages, method of sampling, they should include which equipment is to be used, they should include the amount of the sample which has to be taken, okay type of the condition of the sample container, every minute details should be mentioned okay. So, that is what we tell the reproducibility of the results. So, if these small things are not mentioned, it might not be possible to reproduce the results because even small variations they give you an entirely different product. Okay, now documentation is very, very important, very very important, documentation. Before you start any experiment, write in the date, write in the methodology which is to be followed, the name of the experiment, what is to be done, the reagents, everything should be documented. Because what happens you’re starting on something, after six months if you see that you should be able to recognize it okay. So, this is what you had done six months before, because research is not like ending in one or two months, it can take four years, five years, six years, seven years. So, documentation should be very, very proper. So, even if you see something which you had written one year before or you had an experiment which you had done one year before, that you should be able to reproduce. Because during your PhD use you do so many experiments, some things work, some things do not work. So if you document everything, you’re not going to just simply repeat your mistakes, you’re going to think of something new that has to be done. Aim of documentation – to define specifications for all materials, method of manufacture and control. To inform all concerned person how and when and why a batch is rejective, to provide audit trail to permit investigation of any suspected defective batch okay. So, if any suspected defected batch is there and you are having the knowledge and you can father work on that.

39:05

Records. So, you have a test record, you have the record of the test samples, you have the record of the finished products, whatever test has been done, whatever the calculations has been done, any corrections that has been made, okay. So, all this thing is maintained. So, when you’re maintaining the records, it should have some basic details, okay, like the report number, the name of the sample, the date of reset of the sample, protocols, who ever is analyzing, analyst signature, basic data, calculations, okay, so all these things should be there. Samples get tested in accordance with the written methods and specifications.

40:06

So, you have various in process checks, you had the test methods, they are validated, whenever there is some confusion there is some doubt then the test is repeated, okay, it’s not that you just cover up the mistakes, you just fabricate the data, you falsify thedata, so somewhere along the line, somewhere down the line, everything comes up okay. So, this practice should be strictly disallowed by the student by the supervisor. Okay, so, whenever the test is doubtfull, you repeat the test, but you should not fabricated the data to cover the mistakes to avoid, avoid the ratial work because when the fabrication comes into light, then you have lots of extra work and explanation that needs to be done. So, it’s better to do less of work and be sincere in your work.

41:11

Good Housekeeping and safety. So, whatever persons are working in the laboratory, they should wear proper safety gadgets, they should be familiar with first aid techniques, they should be familiar with the emergency techniques okay, these simple things are prohibited. So, you should not eat, drink, all these things are not allowed in the laboratory. Protective clothing is provided, adequate facilities for storage and disposal of waste is to be provided,

41:55

Flammable and contaminated waste: It should not be poured into the drains carrying the factory aeffluent.

42:03

So, these which are more inflammable, which are more you know, toxic in nature, they are collected safetly and they are disposed separately. Then you have separate waste containers for the broken glass. So, for all this adequate training should be provided so that everyone knows what is the proper technique of disposal of the waste,what is the proper technique of taking care of themselves. SOPs, routine inspection, cleaning, maintenance, testing and calibration, actions to be taken in response to equipment failure and analytical methods, the raw data, keeping records, reporting stories mixing and retrieval of the data. SOPs required for analysis of the drugs, sample handling and accountability, reset identification, storage sampling of test and control articles, cleaning maintenance and calibration of the equipment’s, responsibilities of audit team persons. Okay. So, they should be defined protocols for your safekeeping for the storage and maintenance of various cultures, for the animal rooms, housekeeping, how the document should be kept, for the use of the reference samples for the story to the reference samples. So everything should be properly maintained.

43:45

Okay, now, coming to the next aspect, Review of literature, identifying the gaps and formulating the hypothesis. Like I’d already told yor all, review of literature is one of the most important aspect when you just enter your PhD, first three, four months will be very, very daunting because everytime will be emmersed in the books reviews, literature.

44:16

And it’s a bit boring also sometimes because you have to find something new there is a lot of pressure from the supervisor from the investigator, sorry, investing from your PI, there’s a lot of pressure and this is also the point this is the time when the PI actually gets to know what is your scope and how much analytical thinking that you can produce. So, very, very vital review of literature something different, this is directly related to your research, okay to your research, what research you’re going to do for the five years, what is the new thing that you want to identify what is the new thing that you want to work upon. So, you have to identify some unique thing that will, you know can be reproduced in a lot of papers. Okay, that is so that you can get lots of papers that can be published okay. So, that is the review of literature. Actually study a lot of literature, a lot of review articles, a lot of research articles and come up something you come up with your own idea.

45:43

This is actually what literature review looks like when you actually do a literature review. This is something that happens truly. What is the literature..? A literature review survey scientifically articles, books, medical journals, dissertations and other sources relevant to a particular issue area of research or theory, providing a description summary and critical evaluation of each work. So, whatever work So, whatever scientific articles that you get books, medical journals, all these are referred and you come up come up with a particular idea that you want to work for the next five years. So, what is the purpose of a literature review? it constitutes an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation or you can have reviews of writings in a subject. So, what is the purpose you study it for a better understanding on the subject and you can basically describe each work to others which are under consideration under reviews, you can identify some new ways to interpret a data, you can identify something new, you can identify something new that can you put in fill in the gaps into some previous research, you can come up with something new that resolves some conflicts among the previous contradictory studies, you can come up with specific areas of research.

47:55

So, your research is providing some very contradictory view okay. So, this is basically the purpose of the literature review. So, you list whatever topics you’re interested in, you search you, learn and you write. So, all this together forms a part of the literature review.

48:25

So, what is the main steps, Problem formulation.

48:37

So, you are interested in which field so, as I already told you all, what field or what area you’re going to work with depends on your area of interest on your topic in which you have mastered in your speciality subjects. So, this all B’s forms the basis of problem formulation, which topic of which feild is being examined. What are its issues all these forms part of the problem formulation,

49:14

The literature search. So, you find materials which is relevant to the subject being explored, okay. So, first what is the point you need to find out the area of research oaky the suitability area of research according to your background in which you are most commit. Then use of fine materials which is relevant to the subject being explored data evaluation you determine which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic.

49:59

Analysis and interpretation. So, you discuss the findings you discuss the confusions, what could be the problem the confusions, conclutions with your PI and you come to a specific point. So, obviously you do not have to do this all independently, your PI will be there with each and every step and he/she will always give you some fruitful suggestions. So, that it sheds a right direction on to your research.

50:39

So, you find the literature that you want to work with Okay, you should be able to find something new.

50:49

So, you know, all the literature types, you use all the available resources you use all your search skills to find up something which is new. Now, when you found lots and lots of data, you should be able to manage it, you read efficiency, because you’ve got piles of books, you’ve got lots of data that is there. So, you should be reading efficiently keeping track of references writing relevant annotations. Use it whatever research you have done on your literature work, whatever literature review you have done, use it to choose your research topic to develop your questions that needs to be answered arguing your rationale informing your work with theory and designing methods, how many actually going to implement it. Okay, when you review it, you understand the purpose of the review, you ensure adequate coverage, everything is covered appropriately, you write purposefully and you work on it with silence.

52:15

So, you find it manage it, use it and review it you use each and every bit of the information that you get and you use it to the last bit piece. Here we read sources of literature, journal articles. Journal articles, very good sources. Journal articles, they have all the updated information and any good institutes any you know research laboratories, they have access to lots of journal articles. Okay, and these are one of the best sources of literature best and authentic sources of literature. So, they frequently used in literature reviews, they offer a concise and up to date format for the research. So, you go to PubMed and all. So, this is you know just the general information about some reviews, some research articles, we have got reviews, you’ve got research articles, you have various types of literature that you can actually get, okay. So, basically the general information about any research topic that you are selecting, okay. So, you have the journal articles, these are referred material. Okay something which you can refer to you also have some non refereed journals like some magazines okay. So, from them also you can get some scientific literature some research ideas that can be there books, books also very good sources of learnings okay, books but they are less up to date. Because journal articles you have lots of journals and everytime every month, you have some bi weekly issues or any weekly issues are also there, you get a lot of updated information, but that is not the case with the books, because they take longer time for the book to be published.Conference proceedings: Conferenceproceedings contains research which has not been published. So you get an idea about people working in different research areas. Okay. So, you can track the work similar type of work, which is in your interest by the other researchers so that you get an idea about the direction in which those researchers are working.

54:32

Government corporate reports. So you also have like some government cooperates, the government departments, some corporations, they also periodically mentioned, what is the research that is being carried out. Thesis and dissertations: They also can provide you much information, but the thesis and dissertation they are much more difficult to obtain because they’re not published. Okay, so you can get these from the library or you can get this from the students who are just published the research from your seniors, okay. Internet: So this is one of the most important sources fastest resources, but you should be very, very careful about the information that you get on the internet, because the quality might not be so reliable.

54:39

So that is why you should be very particular from where you’re getting the source. Of course, you’re getting the you’re using the internet, but what is the source of that article that you should carefully validate. So, when you access each piece, you should be very particular about provenance. Likek what is the author’s credentials? Okay, so any arguments which is made by the author? Is it supported by any evidence, by stastical, these things should be very particular.

56:48

Objectivity: So is the author’s perspective, evenhanded, so is some contrary data which is provided, is the authors thesis convincing does the author contribute significantly to any values significantly to the understanding of any research, all these things should be considered, then a rational for your work should be designed, okay, when you provide an explanation, for the reason of doing your research, for the questions that will be answered for the justification of your work. So, you should properly design your goals and the objectives. So, what is the research goal, so, what is actually that you want to achieve? That should be very, very clear and that should be formulated at the beginning of the study. So that during the process of formulating research question and hypothesis, you will be very, very clear and concise and what do you want to do further, okay. And this will also enable the reader to judge whether the investigator has achieved these objectives or not, when you frame the objectives, when you put in their points. So, after the research is done, whoever is reading that particular subject, is able understand whether this object is obtained or not. So, the research object, it is very important to frame the research objectives. So, what are the primary things in this is the development of research methodology. So, why research methodology is important as I’ve already told y’all, it helps to orient the collection analysis, interpretation and utilization of the data that you correctly utilize all the data.

58:54

So, whenever you formulate a research objective, it should closely be related to the research question covering all aspects of the problem it should be very specific, order in a logical sequence and it should be able to describe the experiments, identify, measure, compare it should take into consideration whatever resource available, time that should be taken and it should be mutually exclusive okay should not have any repetitions. So, basically you should be designing some SMART objectives, you should be very specific in your objectives, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and time you do not have all the time. So, you should have some particular time frame we should be there in mind. Now, this is the basis of all the research formulating our research hypothesis. So, what is the research hypothesis is basically a statement of the research question in a measurable form. So, when you plan a particular hypothesis, when you frame a particular hypothesis, it gives you an idea about the user characteristics about the data characteristics about the method that you’re working with. So, if you do not have one method that is working, you should have an alternative feasible method that is working if you have one method which is working more than the other, okay. So, all these things should be correctly defined. Then you should carefully study the existing literature, whatever information is there, whatever information is already been published, so, that you can know what you can contribute to Okay, what you can do to fill in certain gaps to fill in some answer to some unanswered questions that you’ll know exactly how much work and has been done in a particular area and what work further needs to be done okay, and whatever the hypothesis is there, you should have a more specialized hypothesis, okay. So, when you have more specialized hypothesis, it is more likely that it’s a new one and you can increase its impact by publishing more and more data that is relevant to your field of research. So, you should be able to clearly define the hypothesis to be tested, you include any of the condition which is required to fulfill it, you design the right experiments, to test the hypothesis at each and every time point, you carefully analyze the results. you give proper explanation for each and every point and you should be able to understand the hypothesis very very correctly in carefully because, if you do not have a complete understanding of everything, if you do not have a complete understanding of what work you’re doing, you will not be able to formulate a further hypothesis you will not be able to work on your hypothesis for cheap a better understanding, you will not be able to clear your concepts and once your concepts are not clear, you are not going to get the appropriate results relevant to your field of study. So, if you have a clearly defined hypothesis, you will be able to choose the right data and the right measures. Okay, don’t include any necessary conditions any unnecessary conditions, if you don’t over clean and you should be able to justify your hypothesis. Okay, you should be able to provide a clear justification of your hypothesis not designing the experiments, everything depends on the experiment that you are designed on the proper designing of the experiment. So, right from the beginning, if your experiment is flawed, so, needless to say, however, how many times you try you will not get the proper results. Flawed experiment design is a common cause of rejection of paper. Data should match the hypothesis. So, if you’re claiming a particular method is more better than the previous one, So, you need a correct data you need a variety of represented data to be able to prove the Hypothesis.

1:04:12

So, whatever measures are being taken whatever experiments is done, they should be able to match the hypothesis okay, and you can test multiple hypothesis simultaneously, if possible, carefully analyze the results to the significant test go beyond just getting a yes or no asnwers. So, if it is positive, you seek for evidence. So, if it is positive, you should have some evidence for supporting your hypothesis okay. So, you should do the proper set of experiments to support your justification of the process. Now, if you is negative, then again you should look into reasons why it is negative how the hypothesis can be modified. So, even if you’re getting positive results, you should look for the reason for that and you should look for reasons to support your claim even if you’re getting some negative results you should understand how the hypothesis can be quantified okay get as much possible data out of the results of one experiment before jumping into the other experiment and do not throw any negative date, you never know you know, what can come into your use try to think alternative ways, try to think of some new things some new ways of looking at the data. So, every data is data whether it is more positive or it is negative don’t stop at the current hypothesis. See, suppose you have presented a hypothesis, but at some point of time what happens you need to modify your hypothesis, this is in keeping with the current trends, you want to discover some further knowledge you get an important information okay. So, in variation with that, you can just modify the hypothesis to suit your needs.

1:06:28

If the hypothesis is supported, then you can think of generalizing the hypothesis you can test the new hypothesis, if the hypothesis is not supported, you can you know search for some more accurate data to see that it can be supported that you can use it to the maximum, derive new hypothesis. So, after you finish testing some hypothesis and reaching confusions try to see if you can derive interesting new hypothesis okay. So, sometimes what you get, you derive a hypothesis you also get some additional information which is there.

1:07:15

So, you have designed a new hypothesis, you can also get you know some additional work on a new hypothesis okay. So, new hypothesis it may help to find causes. So, if the cause is x, then you can have some result which can be true. So, what we are going to do we test the efficacy of that result. So, what is important in the research methodology is that you follow a basic set of the SOPs, okay and you practice good laboratory practices. You should be very particular in doing the literature review because that is what is going to form the basis of your five year work research plan okay, so, research hypothesis and then after your review of literature is done, you should be very carefully be able to formulate a research hypothesis that is going to give you some new results some new interpretations, some new informations that can help you to fill gaps in the already existing results database or you can contribute significantly to some new research ideas.

1:08:54

So is that clear students? Is it clear? How do you proceed with the first step of your research is it clear, do you have any questions okay students, thank you so much for joining in. You have your next class tomorrow. Dr. Preeti will be talking about more things in research methodology. Thank you so much students for joining in. Good night, everyone.

It is vital for a research aspirant to be able to reproduce his or her ideas and work on paper. For any research idea to get approved, established and published, it must be compliant with a defined set of regulations. Taking a look into statistics, approximately 21% of research papers are rejected without review, and approximately 40% of papers are rejected after peer review. It is essential to know ‘why’ and ‘how to avoid it’. A student would have spent months and years together on gathering the needed data from experiments, surveys and an equal amount of effort would have been put into designing the paper, working on the thesis, and it would be really painful if the whole thing were to be dismissed right at the end. Time and effort is precious. Keeping this in mind, Biotecnika has designed a self learning course on ‘Research methodology’ to help you become aware about all the different aspects required to be able to, individually, publish your research ideas, without having the fear of getting rejected !

It is essential to know the methodology of planning your research from the beginning, the process it involves, data compilation, reviewing a paper and also writing a paper which can be accepted by best journals.

Research methodology is the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to the field of study. Methodology may include publication research, interviews, surveys and other research techniques, and could include both present and historical information. The ultimate aim is to design a reliable thesis that would in future contribute towards the benefit of humanity.

Course content:

1. Introduction: Scope and significance of research methodology, Good laboratory practices and quality control
2. Review of literature : Identifying the gaps and formulating the hypothesis
3. Research material: Use of taxonomic keys, Samples: Collection, transport, handling and preservation of microorganisms, plankton, insects, and animals from natural and lad bred population. Water and air samples. relevance of sample size. Culture and maintenance of samples. Safe disposal of used and rejected and materials.
4. Tips on Reviewing a research articles
5. Demonstration of writing a research proposal – identify a topic for research and preparing a document with the following information – Background of research problems, Objectives, strategies for the experimental work, Expected results, preparation of rough draft and bibliography. And also to also present and defend a research proposal.
6. Tips on conducting research in a lab: Selecting the correct methodology, Reviewing and modifying the techniques, Dos and Don’ts in a Lab, Result interpretation and selection
7. Writing a research Article or Thesis Submission
8. Reasons for article rejection: Do’s and don’ts while submitting a research article for publication.”

Take aways at the end of the course

• To know more about scope and significance of research methodology
• Tips on reviewing an article, conducting research in the lab
• Tips on how to design your research proposal and its execution
• Do’s and Don’t you should know before you plan your research career
• Tips on reviewing a research article and to write an article to avoid rejection

HAPPY LEARNING !

Dear Researchers,

Ever wondered why research papers are rejected at first glance?

Evidence suggests that 21% of papers are rejected without review, and approximately 40% of papers are rejected after peer review.

Many of the researches end up completing their work after several years of continuous efforts.

There are many reasons why a researcher may not succeed in completing his work in the given time with the best results.

It is very important to know the methodology of planning your research from the beginning, the process it involves, date compilation, reviewing a paper and also writing a paper which can be accepted by best journals.

Research methodology is a process used to collect information and data for the purpose of making research decisions. The methodology may include publication research, interviews, surveys and other research techniques, and could include both present and historical information.

To help the researcher plan his research and execute it with in the best time possible, Biotecnika offers a 7 days workshop on Research methodology

How it can help you?

To know more about scope and significance of research methodology
Tips on reviewing an article, conducting research in the lab
Do’s and Don’t you should know before you plan your research career
Tips on reviewing a research article and to write an article to avoid rejection
Who is eligible?

The courses are designed to suit Life Science graduates, post graduates, teaching and industry professionals along with research enthusiasts. All individual streams can apply.
A basic level knowledge about various concepts involved in life science is required.
A good internet speed for live streaming is required.
Course Benefits:

The content of the courses have been designed to match the industry standards.
The course content will be available offline for reference after the scheduled date and duration.
Interactive sessions with on spot doubt clearing by the present faculties and industry experts, from the comfort of your home.
Understand the applications of these courses in the industry and how to use the same for strengthening your job applications.
Timings are designed to suit students as well as professionals.
Certificates will be provided on course completion that adds weightage to your profile.