Dr. Utkarsh Raj

Faculty, Dr. Utkarsh Raj - NIIT University

Designation:	Assistant Professor
Area:	Bioinformatics
Qualification:	Ph.D., Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad
Courses Taught	Chemoinformatics, Biological data mining, NGS Data Analysis, Introduction to Genomics & Proteomics
Teaching Field:	Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
Experiences:	Four years research experience and teaching assistantship during Ph.D. tenure at IIIT-Allahabad
Research Areas:	Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
Research Focus:	Cancer Epigenetics
Other Interests:	Playing Cricket & Badminton, Singing & Cooking
Email-Id:	Utkarsh.Raj@niituniversity.in
Information of Research Publications
Research Publication Details (From 2014 to 2018):	PUBLICATIONS IN SCI/SCIE INDEXED JOURNALS: Utkarsh Raj#, Mausami Mondal#, Rahul Semwal#, Imlimaong Aier, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2018) An Entropy Based Classification of Breast Cancerous Genes Using Microarray Data. Neural Computing and Applications. [Impact factor: 4.213; #Authors having equal contribution] ~ Accepted Navdeep Raghuwanshi, Tara Chand Yadav, Amit Kumar Srivastava, Utkarsh Raj, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj, Vikas Pruthi (2018) Structure-Based Drug Designing and Identification of Woodfordia fruticosa Inhibitors targeted against Heat Shock Protein (HSP70-1) as suppressor for Imiquimod-induced psoriasis in mice model. Materials Science & Engineering C. [Impact factor: 5.080] ~ Accepted Bhushan Jain, Utkarsh Raj, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2018) Drug Target Interplay: a network-based analysis of human diseases and the drug targets. Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. Vol: 18 [Impact factor: 3.374] ~ doi: 10.2174/1568026618666180719160922 Utkarsh Raj, Imlimaong Aier, Rahul Semwal, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2017) Identification of novel dysregulated key genes in Breast Cancer through high throughput ChIP-Seq data analysis. Scientific Reports. [Impact factor: 4.259] ~ Vol: 7:3229 \| doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03534-x Saurabh Gupta, Brijesh Singh Yadav, Utkarsh Raj, Shiri Freilich, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2017) Transcriptomic analysis of soil grown T. aestivum cv. root to reveal the changes in expression of genes in response to multiple nutrients deficiency. Frontiers in Plant Science. Vol: 8:1025 \| doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.01025 [Impact factor: 4.298] Imlimaong Aier, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj, Utkarsh Raj* (2016) Structural insights into conformational stability of both wild-type and mutant type EZH2 receptor. Scientific Reports. Vol: 6:34984 \| doi: 10.1038/srep34984 [Corresponding author; Impact factor: 4.259] Utkarsh Raj, Himansu Kumar, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2016) Molecular docking and dynamics simulation study of flavonoids as BET bromodomain inhibitors. Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. pp:1-12; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07391102.2016.1217276 [Impact factor: 3.123] Utkarsh Raj, Saurabh Gupta, Himansu Kumar, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2016) Identification of Novel inhibitors for disrupting EZH2-EED interactions involved in cancer epigenetics: An In-Silico approach. Current Proteomics. 13(4), 313-321. [Impact factor: 0.590] Vandana Kumari, Rashmi Tripathi, Sunil Patel, Utkarsh Raj, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2016) DUSR (Distributed Ultrafast Shape Recognition): a Hadoop based Tool to Identify Similar Shaped Ligand Molecules. Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Education and Research. 51(1):34-42 [Impact Factor: 0.351] Saurabh Gupta, Yashbir Singh, Himansu Kumar, Utkarsh Raj, Atamakauri Ramakrishna Rao, Pritish Varadwaj (2016) Identification of novel abiotic stress proteins in Triticum aestivum through functional annotation of Hypothetical proteins. Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences. pp: 1-16; 10.1007/s12539-016-0178-3 [Impact factor: 0.753] Kamal Kumar Chaudhary, Utkarsh Raj, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj, Nidhi Mishra (2016) Novel Potent Plasmepsin-I (PMI) Inhibitors: an In-Silico approach. Current Proteomics. 13(3), 196-205 [Impact factor: 0.590] Sarvesh Kumar Gupta, Kamal Kumar Chaudhary, Utkarsh Raj, Nidhi Mishra (2016) Computational Identification of Inhibitors against DPP-IV for checking types-2 diabetes. Letters in Drug Design & Discovery. 14(1), 66-73 [Impact factor:1.170] Utkarsh Raj, Himansu Kumar, Saurabh Gupta, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2015) Exploring dual inhibitors for STAT1 and STAT5 receptors utilizing Virtual Screening and Dynamics Simulation Validation. Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. 34(10), 2115-2129 [Impact factor: 3.123] Himansu Kumar, Utkarsh Raj, Swati Srivastava, Saurabh Gupta, Pritish Varadwaj (2015) In-silico identification of inhibitors against mutated BCR-ABL protein of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: A Virtual Screening and Molecular Dynamics Simulation study. Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. 34(10), 2171-2183 [Impact factor: 3.123] Utkarsh Raj, Himansu Kumar, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2015) 3D Structure Generation, Molecular Dynamics and Docking Studies of IRHOM2 Protein involved in Cancer & Rheumatoid Arthritis. Current Computer-Aided Drug Design. 11(4), 325-335 [Impact factor: 0.770] Utkarsh Raj, Himansu Kumar, Saurabh Gupta, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2015) Novel Natural inhibitors for DOT1L receptor involved in Mixed Lineage Leukemia: A Virtual Screening, Molecular Docking and Dynamics Simulation study. Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention: APJCP. 16(9), 3817-3825 [Impact factor: 2.514] Utkarsh Raj*, Pritish K. Varadwaj (2015) Flavonoids as multi-target inhibitors for proteins associated with Ebola virus: in-silico discovery using virtual screening and molecular docking studies. Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences. 8(2), 132-141 [Corresponding author ; Impact factor: 0.796] Saurabh Gupta, Alka Jadaun, Himansu Kumar, Utkarsh Raj, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj, A.R.Rao. (2015) Exploration of new drug like inhibitors for serine/threonine protein phosphatase 5 of Plasmodium falciparum: A docking and simulation study. Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. 33(11), 2421-2441 [Impact factor: 3.123] Himansu Kumar, Utkarsh Raj, Saurabh Gupta, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2015) Effect of STAT3 inhibitor in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia associated signalling pathway: A Mathematical Modeling, Simulation and Systems Biology study. 3Biotech Springer. 6(1), 1-12 [Impact factor: 1.361] Himansu Kumar, Utkarsh Raj, Swati Srivastava, Saurabh Gupta, Pritish Kumar Varadwaj (2015) Identification of dual natural inhibitors for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia by Virtual Screening, Molecular Dynamics Simulation and ADMET analysis. Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences. 8(3), 241-252 [Impact factor: 0.796]

Dr. Utkarsh Raj has earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Bioinformatics & Applied Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad, an Institute of National Importance by Govt. of India (Center for Excellence in IT). His thesis deals with targeting epigenetic regulators for cancer therapy through NGS data analysis, systems biology & structural biology approaches. He was also involved in teaching assistantship for the subjects, Chemoinformatics, Introduction to Genomics & Proteomics, Systems Biology, Biological data mining, NGS data analysis and was also involved in framing projects for students at IIIT-Allahabad. He has published his research in various SCI/SCIE/ESCI and Scopus indexed journals, and also presented his work in different national and international conferences which show his research quest. He serves as a reviewer of several prestigious peer reviewed journals such as Emerging Microbes & Infections, Nature Publications; Journal of Biomolecular Structure & Dynamics, Taylor & Francis; IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, IEEE & ACM Publishers; Computational Biology and Chemistry, Elsevier (Awarded Outstanding Reviewer Award for 2017).

During his tenure at IIIT-Allahabad, he has served as Ph.D.
Representative and was involved as an active member in various student committees. He was awarded MHRD fellowship during his Ph.D. He was selected for ‘Young Research Scholarship’ for attending the 15th International Conference on Healthcare & Life-Science Research (ICHLSR), 2017, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Moreover, he was also awarded with the ‘First award of 500 US$’ for being amongst the Authors of Excellent Papers in 2016 in the journal of Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences. He bagged ‘Young Scientist Award’ in ICET-2016 which was jointly organized by Biotechnology Society of Nepal and Biologix Research and Innovation Centre Private Limited, India. Dr. Raj has delivered many guest lectures and invited talks on Molecular Dynamics Simulation at prestigious institutes like AIIMS, etc. He worked on a part of the DBT project during his postgraduate studies under his thesis mentor. He holds the 1st rank during his M.Tech (Spl: Bioinformatics) studies at Gautam Buddha University and was also awarded 50% scholarship throughout his B.Tech degree on the basis of academic performance.