Scientists

Educational Qualifications:  Ph.D, M.Sc (Plant Breeding), MS (Computer Sci., USA)
Employment History:  Rice Breeder (1985 to 2000), ANGR. Agricultural University, Hyderabad, India
                                   Post Doc Fellow:  FORBIO Research, QlD, Australia (1994-98)
                                   Faculty member with VBI & Virginia Polytechnic & State Univ, Blacksburg, VA,USA
                                   G. B. Pant Univ. Agriculture & Tech., Pantnagar, UTK, India

Projects :

• Establishment  and Maintenance  of   National Genomic Resources Repository and  Bioinformatics Facility, ICAR NBPGR. http://www.nbpgr.ernet.in:8080/NGRR/Home.aspx
• Indo-UK centre for  Improvement of Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Wheat website http://inewindiawheat.in
• Indo-UK Centre for  Improvement of Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Wheat, ICAR NBPGR, NRCPB, DWR, BISA, IARI, IWBR, Uniiversity of Bristol, John Inns centre, UNivesity of Cambridge, University of Nottinghham  and Rothamsted Agricultural Station. http://inewindiawheat.in/
• Establishment of National Agricultural Bioinformatics Grid, (063-NAIP-DFC-SM-10) NAIP-ICAR, http://nabg.iasri.res.in/
• HPC facility NBPGR

 Areas of Research:

• Crop Genome Analysis employing Next Generation Sequencing Techniques
• Discovery of  important Genes from Sequenced Genome of Cajanus cajan employing Next Generation sequencing Tools.
• Discovery of Genes for Nitrogen Use Efficiency, Transcriptome analysis of Indian Wheat germplasm ( Indo-UK  Project on N use Efficiency in Wheat)
•  Design & Development of Bioinformatics Analysis Tools; Prokaryotic Genome Browser (http://www.bioinfo.de/isb/2007/07/0038/) Degenerate PCR Primer Design Tool: http://192.168.1.5/Dgen/DGEN_tool/index.html
• Jasmonic acid Pathway in rice, Bioinformatics tool design and Protein structure prediction and drug design

Member Task force, Bioinformatics (DBT, BCIS), Govt. of India.
Member (nominated) American Academy of Sciences(NY), USA

1. Marla, Soma S., Pallavi Mishra, Ranjeet Maurya, Mohar Singh, D. P. Wankhade, Anil K. Gupta, Sanjeev K. Singh, and Rajesh Kumar. "Refinement of Genome assemblies of Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan). Front. Genet., 15 December 2020. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2020.607432/full

2. Mallikarjuna, M.G., Thirunavukkarasu, N., Sharma, R., Shiriga, K., Hossain, F., Bhat, J.S., Mithra, A.C., Marla, S.S., Manjaiah, K.M., Rao, A.R. and Gupta, H.S., 2020. Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of Iron and Zinc Deficiency in Maize (Zea mays L.). Plants, 9(12), p.1812.

3. Soma Marla (2020), Large Dams and loss of Biodiversity, journal of people and environment, New York.

4. Neelofar Mirza and Soma Marla (2019), Finger Millet (Eleusine coracan L. Gartn.) Breeding, Elswier Publishers.

5. Pallavi Mishra, Ranjeet Maurya , Vijai K. Gupta, Pramod  W. Ramteke, Soma S. Marla and Anil Kumar (2019). Comparative genomic analysis of monosporidial and monoteliosporic cultures for unraveling the complexity of molecular pathogenesis of Tilletia indica pathogen of wheat, Scientific Reports, 9(1), 8185. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44464-0

6. Marla S.S., Mirza N., Nadella K.D. (2018) Metabolic Pathway Analysis Employing Bioinformatic Software. In: Wadhwa G., Shanmughavel P., Singh A., Bellare J. (eds) Current trends in Bioinformatics: An Insight. Springer, ,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7483-7_10:https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-981-10-7483-7_10

7. Anil kumar, Pallavi Mishra, Ranjeet Maurya, A.K. Mishra, Vijai K. Gupta, Pramod W. Ramteke, Soma S. Marla (2018). Improved Draft Genome Sequence of a Monoteliosporic Culture of the Karnal Bunt (Tilletia indica) Pathogen of Wheat. Genome Announcement 6:e00015-18. https://doi.org/10.1128/genomeA.00015-18.

8. Vishakha Pandey, Manoj Singh, Dinesh Pandey, Soma Marla, and Anil Kumar (2018), Secretome Analysis Identifies Potential Pathogenicity/ Virulence Factors of Tilletia indica, a Quarantined Fungal Pathogen Inciting Karnal Bunt Disease in Wheat, Proteomics. 2018 Apr;18(8): e1700473;  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pmic.201700473

9. Marla S.S. (2017) Structural Analysis of Resistance (R) Genes in Potato (Solanum Species) Genome. In: Kumar Chakrabarti S., Xie C., Kumar Tiwari J. (eds) The Potato Genome. Compendium of Plant Genomes. Springer, Cham.  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-66135-3_14

10. N. K. Gautam, S. S. Marla, N. Mirza, Z. Khan, B. Singh, D. P. Wankhede and B. H. Gawade (2017) Evaluation of field pea accessions for root-knot nematode resistance and possible role of NADP dependent malic enzyme gene in host resistance, DOI: 10.5958/0975-6906.2017.00073.6, Indian J. Genet., 77(4): 556-563  

11. P. Renuka, Maafganti Seshu, Soma Marla  et al., ( 2017),  RNASeq of Ricee Yellow stem borer reveals molecular insights during four larval developmental stages, 3G-Genes, Genomes, Genetics (USA), G3: Geens, Gentics and Genomics (USA), 2017. http://www.g3journal.org/content/early/2017/07/21/g3.117.043737 

12. Shachi Gahoi,Neetesh Pandey, B.V. Suresh, Monendra Grover, S.S. Marla and Anil Rai (2016), A computational study on genetic diversity of 'shatterproof1 (shp1) and shatterproof2 (shp2)' genes in some members of 'Oleraceae' and its molecular implications, Plant Omics, Vol. 9, No. 4, Jul 2016: 248-260 

13. Anil Kumar, Vishakha Pandey, Manoj Singh, Dinesh Pandey, M. S. Saharan, soma s. Marla (2016), Draft genome sequence of Karnal bunt pathogen (Tilletia indica) of wheat provides insights into the pathogenic mechanisms of quarantined fungus,PLOS One, Feb, 2017: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?d=10.1371/journal.pone.0171323

14. Rakesh Singh, Rajesh Kumar, Ajay Kumar Mahato, Ritu Paliwal, Amit Kumar Singh, Soma S. Marla, Ashok Kumar, Nagendra K. Singh (2016),De novo transcriptome sequencing facilitates genomic resource generation in Tinospora cordifolia, Functional and Integrative Genomics. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10142-016-0508-x

15. Mallikarjuna M G Nepolean, Soma Marla et al. ( 2016), In-silico characterisation and comparative mapping of yellow stripe like (YSL) transporters in five grass species"  The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences ( In Press).

16.  Jyoti Bhati,  Pavan Chaduvula, Soma Marla et al ( 2016), In Silico Prediction and Function Analysis of Salt Responsive Genes in Rice (Oryza sativa), j Rice res, 4:1.

17. Pavan Chaduvula, Jyothi Bhati, Soma Marla et al., ( 2015) In silico expressed Sequence tag Analysis  and idefication and characterization of  Salinity stress responsible genes in Sorghum bicolor.Australian J. Crop Sci., 9 (9),799-806.

18. Soma S. Marla  and  V. K. Singh (2012) LOX genes in blast fungus (Magnaporthe grisea) resistance in rice, March, Funct Integr Genomics, DOI 10.1007/s10142-012-0268-1. http://www.springerlink.com/content/lw856354263g5448/

19.    K.D. Nadella, Soma S. Marla and P.Ananda Kumar (2012), Metabolomics in Agriculture, OMICS,Volume 16, Number 4 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22433073

20. Mouradov, A., Saw bridge, T., Hamdorf, B., Glassick, Marla, S., T., Murphy, Teasdale, R. (1998) NEEDLY, a Pinus radiata ortholog of FLORICULA/LEAFY genes, expressed in both reproductive and vegetative meristems. Proc Natl Acad Sci., USA. 1998, May, 26; 95(11):6537-42.http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/11/6537

21. Mouradov, A., Glassick, T., Hamdorf, B., Murphy, L., Marla, S., Yang, Y.,Teasdale, R. (1998) Family of MADS Box genes expressed in male and female reproductive structures of monetary pine. Plant. Physiol. 117:55-61 (USA).http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/117/1/55.abstract

22. Tomar N R, Marla S S , Chandra R, Kumar R  and Kumar A ( 2011), In silico epitope (T-228) rabies virus vaccine candidate. Online  J. Bioinformatics, V.12 (1).

23. Shalini Purwar, Soma Marla, U Singh, Anil Kumar (2009), Basal expression studies of cystatins d6ring specific growth stages of wheat spikes for defining their possible role in differential and stage dependent immunity against Karnal bunt (Tilletia indica), Mol Biol Rep. 2009 Apr 5;: 19347606.
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/65j6v22q5 , 7n37218/fulltext.pdf

24. Sourabh Jain, Bhoomika Saiuja, Abhishek Gupta, Soma S. Marla, Reeta Goel , Validation of Arsenic Resistance in Bacillus cereus Strain AG27 by Comparative Protein Modeling of arsC Gene Product, Protein J DOI 10.1007/s10930-011-9305-5.

25. H.Choudary, D.K. Singh, S. S. Marla and  V.B.S. Chauhan (2011), Genetic Diversity among cultivated and wild germplasm of cucumber based on RAPD analysis, Indian J. Hort, 68 (2), 197-202.

26. Prema K. Latha, Ravindra Soni, Mahejibin Khan, Soma S. Marla, Reeta Goel(2008), Exploration of Csp Genes Form Temperate and Glacier Soils of the Indian Himalayas and in silico Analysis of Encoding Proteins, Curr Microbiol DOI 10.1007/s00284-008-9344-0

27. Marla Soma, Bharatiya Deeksha, Bala Madhu, Singh Vinay, Kumar Anil (2010), Classification of Rice Seed Storage Proteins using Neural Networks, Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Volume : 19(1), 123-126.

28. N R Tomar, V  Singh, S S Marla, R Chandra, R Kumar and A Kumar. Molecular docking studies with rabies virus glycoprotein to design viral therapeutics. Indian Journal of Pharamceutical Sciences, July-August-2010, 486-490. http://www.ijpsonline.com/article.asp?issn=0250-474X;year=2010;volume=72;issue=4;spage=486;epage=490;aulast=Tomar

29. Soma Sundar. M. & Gostimsky, S.A. (1992).  Somaclonal variation in Tomato Tissue Culture. Crop Improvement. 19(2) 92-96.

30. Dutt S, Singh VK, Marla SS, Kumar A(2010), n silico analysis of sequential, structural and functional diversity of wheat cystatins and its implication in plant defense, Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics( Elsivier). 8(1):42-56.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20451161

31.  A.Mouradov,T.Sawbridge, B. Hamdorf, T. Soma Marla, Glassick L, Murphy l, Y.Yanf, and R.D.Teasdale (1998) Genetic engineering of reproductive sterility in Pinus radiata. Acta Hort. 46.1,. 417-421.

32. Soma Marla and V.K. Singh (2007) Procaryotic Genome Visualization tool. In silico Biology 7, 0038 (2007). http://www.bioinfo.de/isb/2007/07/0038/

33. Paul Juell, Soma Marla, Francl.J., Using Multiple nets for addressing noisy data in back propagation neural net training. Paper submitted at the 7th IASTED International Conference, Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing ASC 2003, July 14-16, 2003, Banff, Alberta, Canada. ACTA Press,
    http://www.actapress.com/Abstract.aspx?paperId=13271

34. Soma Marla et al, (2006), Comparative Structure and function analysis of chorismate synthase genes in Prevotella rumnicola, Online Journal of bioinformatics,Australia,7(1):35-45,2006.http://www.comcen.com.au/%7Ejournals/structureabs2006.htm

35. Singh H, Marla SS, Verma D. (2007), Comparative Analysis of MMFF94x and AMBER99 force fields using Aspartic Proteases, Serine Proteases, Metallo-Proteases and Sugar-Binding Proteins as different data sets. On-line Journal of Bioinformatics (University of Queensland) 8 (45-55, 2007.
    http://www.comcen.com.au/%7Ejournals/asparticabs2007.htm

36. Harkewal singh, Soma S. Marla, Manas Agarwal, Docking Studies of Tau Protein (2007), IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, 33:1, IJCS_33_1_7

37. Soma Sundar M , N.R. Swamy ((1995) Molecular bilological tools for sugarcane  breeding, “Application of Biotechnology for sustainabvle sugarcane production, Seminar, 44 th Annual convention of Deccan Sugar Technologists Association ( India), 44-47.

38. K.Bhagawan Dora, Soma Sundar M., (1995) Development of mid-late and late season varietes of sugarcane for A.P.  state, Bharatiya Sugar, 47-52.

39. K.Bhagawan Dora, K. rajaBapa rao, N.V.Naidu, Soma Sundar M., T.V.K.M.Rao, M.R. Naidu(1996), Development of early maturing sugarcane geneotypes for Andhra pradesh, Cooperative Sugar, v.3, 27,  Bharatiya Sugar, 513-18.

40. Soma Sundar, M., Ezhova, T., Gostimsky, S.A. (1990). Callus and shoot forming abilities of tomato genotypes in vitro. Biol. Navuki. (Moscow State Univ. publ.) 8(320) 136-40.

41. Soma Sundar, M. (1999).Biotechnology for rice improvement. Rice Production Technology Workshop , ARS, Maruteru( India),1,16-19.

42. Naik, P. and Marla, S. (2005), Promoter analysis in E. coli using Positional similarity scoring matrix, Bioinformatics journal, v.3,1: p. 59-63.

43. Soma Marla , Naik, P, Shikha Kaushal and Sethi, R.(2005), Evaluating the performance of Gene Prediction tools. In book. Bioinformatics computing,(2005), Ed. Garg and Singh, Allied Publ., N. Delhi.

44. V.K. Singh, S. Ambhvani, Soma Marla and A.Kumar ()2009),  Cry-Bt identifier: A biological database for PCR detection of Cry genes present in  transgenic plants, Bioinformation, 4(5), 182-183

45. Soma Marla and Anil Kumar (2008), In silico Metabolic pathway analysis of Procaryotic microbial genomes,In Proc. 11^th Workshop on Medical Informatics & CME on Biomedical Communications, P. 22-27

46. S. Jain, A. Rani, S. Marla and R. Goel (2010), Differential Proteomic analysis of Psychotolerant Pseudomonas putida 710A and alkalophilic Pseudomonas monetelli 97AN for cadmium stress, Int J. Biol.Med. Res., 1 (4), 234-241.

47. Harkcwal Singh, Soma S. Marla, Manas Agarwal(2007),Docking studies of Tau Protein, IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, 33:1, IJCS_33_1_7.

48. Vinay Kumar Singh,Sonu Ambwani, Soma S.Marla, Anil Kumar (2009), Cry-Bt Identifier : A biological database for PCR detection of Cry genes  present in transgenic plants,Bioinformation 4(5):182-183 (2009). http://www.bioinformation.net/004/004300042009.pdf

49. Saurabh Pandey, Yogesh Kumar Negi, Soma S. Marla and Sandeep Arora (2011), Comparative Insilico Analysis of Ascorbate Peroxidase Protein Sequences, Pandey et al. J Bioengineer & Biomedical Sci 2011, 1:2, Pandey et al. J Bioengineer & Biomedical Sci 2011, 1:2, http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-9538.1000103.

50. Soma Marla ( 2015),In Paris Summit Rich West Evaded Responsibility from Global warming, Mainstream Weelky. http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article6165.html

51. Soma Marla ( 2014), Jawaharlal Nehru builder of Modern Science &  Scientific Temper in India, Mainstream Weekly, http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article4588.html

52. Soma Marla ( 2019), India: Transforming Delhi from ‘gas chamber’ to healthy city Green Left weekly, Australia. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/india-transforming-delhi-gas-chamber-healthy-city