Research Areas: Research area of focus: Fish health, diagnostics, and vaccines

Current Research Projects:

1. Valsalam, A., Bedekar, M.K., Kezhedath, J., Sood, N., Poojary, N., Namdeo, M.S., Shrivastava, N. and Rajendran, K.V., 2024. Isolation, in vitro, and in vivo pathogenicity test of Tilapia lake virus (TiLV) and development of a prognostic semi-quantitative lesion scoring system for differentiating clinical/subclinical infection in farmed tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus L.). Microbial Pathogenesis, 186, p.106475.
2. Supradhnya Namdeo, M., Bedekar, M.K., Kezhedath, J., Rajendran, K.V., Valsalam, A., Godavarikar, A., Vinde, P., Hundare, S., Chanu, K.V., Thakuria, D. and Sahu, N.P., 2026. Development and validation of a synthetic peptide-based field deployable latex slide agglutination test for detection of Tilapia tilapinevirus. Plos one, 21(3), p.e0344743.
3. Akash, J.S., Bedekar, M.K., Rajendran, K.V., Tripathi, G., Valsalam, A. and Krishna, G., 2026. Transcriptional investigation of immune gene expression dynamics in Rohu (Labeo rohita) in response to killed Flavobacterium columnare vaccine. Molecular Biology Reports, 53(1), p.236.
4. Malik MA, Bedekar MK, Bhat RA, Valsalam A, Varghese T, Jahageerdar S, Nayak SK, Reang D, Gupta S. Peptide-based indirect ELISA for salmon GnRH analogue detection: Enhanced sero-retention with chitosan nanoconjugation. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules. 2025 Nov 11:148970.
5. Valsalam, A., Rajendran, K.V., Kezhedath, J., Godavarikar, A., Sood, N. and Bedekar, M.K., 2023. Development of an indirect ELISA test for the detection of Tilapia lake virus (TiLV) in fish tissue and mucus samples. Journal of Virological Methods, 315, p.114707. .
6. Valsalam, A., Gireesh-Babu, P., Rajendran, K.V., Tripathi, G. and Bedekar, M.K., 2023. Re-engineering of bicistronic plasmid pGPD/IFN to construct fusion gene co-expressing Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (GAPDH) of Edwardsiella tarda and Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) gene of Labeo rohita (Hamilton) and its in vitro functional analysis. Indian Journal of Experimental Biology (IJEB), 61(03), p.204-213.
7. • Valsalam, A., Rajendran, K.V., Vinde, P. and Bedekar, M.K., 2023. Optimisation of transformation in the heterologous fusion gene GAPDH-IFN cloning using DH5α strain of Escherichia coli. Indian Journal of Fisheries, 70(2), p.144-147.

• Dr. C.V. Kulkarani Best Ph.D. Student Research Award for the year 2024 for the Ph.D. Thesis: “Development of Immunodiagnostic Assay for Tilapia lake virus (TiLV) and its Validation using Reverse Transcription PCR” in the field of Fisheries and Allied Sciences by ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai.
• Dr. Hiralal Chaudhuri Gold Medal for securing the first position in the M.F.Sc programme in Aquatic Animal Health Management Department for the academic year 2017-2019 by ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai.
• Prof. Rabindranath Krothapalli Gold Medal for securing the first position in the M.F.Sc programme in Aquatic Environment and Health Management Division; Academic year 2017-2019 by ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai.
• Dr. C.V. Kulkarani Gold Medal for securing the position of overall topper (University) in the M.F.Sc programme of the academic year 2017-2019 by ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai.
• Conference Travel Grant Award for participation and oral presentation of original research paper in conference on “Fisheries and Aquaculture: An Ecological Perspective” held at GADVASU, Ludhiana, 2023.
• Best Publication of the Year (2023)’: Awarded Third Best Publication of the year 2023, from the Aquatic Environment and Health Management Division, ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai, for the contribution to the research paper published in ‘Microbial Pathogenesis’.
• Availed Pattukottai Azhagiri Endowment Scholarship during B.F.Sc degree progamme, Batch 2013-17, Fisheries College and Research Institute, Thoothukudi.