The tuberculosis bacteria is notorious for its ability to stay dormant for years within the human body, evading the immune system and always one step away from causing aggressive infection. Now, a study from researchers at Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad, and Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTech), Chandigarh, has investigated a novel molecular pathway that helps the bacteria avoid the notice of the immune system.

The 3rd National Post-Doc Symposium was held from 10 - 13 December 2019 at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, and was attended by over 70 postdocs and late-stage PhD students from around the country. The proceedings and key take-home points emerging from the meeting are discussed below. Registration is currently open for the 4th National Post-Doc Symposium, to be held on 3-4 April 2021 in a virtual format.

The need for more transparent, comprehensive, and practical guidelines for carrying out quality research has been recognized time and again in the Indian scientific ecosystem. To address this lacuna, the University Grants Commission (UGC) recently released a document titled “Good Academic Research Practices (GARP)”, which lists best practices for researchers and institutions to maintain excellent standards of ethical research.

Aggregation of amyloid proteins is believed to play a central role in many neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease. Now, a collaborative study by Indian researchers has explored certain key biophysical processes that are involved in the initial steps of this process, providing us with an important clue about the early stages of Parkinson's disease progression.

Like a handful of other viruses, the novel coronavirus may also be capable of crossing the placental barrier in pregnant women and infecting the fetus. A recent study from researchers at ICMR-National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (ICMR-NIRRH) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has examined molecular players in the placenta which may be responsible for allowing the virus to access the developing fetus.

Our brains are quite proficient at recognizing jumbled words and reading them correctly. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, studied this fascinating phenomenon and came up with a computational model that uses artificial neurons to simulate the way the brain processes jumbled words.

In a virtual ceremony on 2 December 2020, the Infosys Science Foundation announced the winners of the twelfth Infosys Prize awards. The awardees represented a diversity of fields and research areas, spread across six categories: Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences