The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) has launched an incubation cell for biotechnology start-ups. Supported by funding from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), under the Bio-Incubator Support Scheme (BISS), the facility, inaugurated on 11^th December by Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, aims to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship amongst researchers.

According to the press release, the bio-incubator will offer lab and office space, high-end equipment, scale-up facilities, technical support and centralized utilities for process development to help technologies mature and attain commercialization. The well-equipped 3000 sq. ft. wet lab facility is housed in the IIT-M Research Park. "We aim to expand our facility to encompass a sprawling 12,000 sq. ft. over the next six months or so", said Guhan Jayaraman, Project Co-ordinator for the incubator. "We will be able to support as many as 15 start-ups after expansion," he added.

Currently, four companies have been selected in the first phase. Vital Bio-scientific Solutions aims to create a kit that will model a system's reaction to a drug and Yaathum Biotech is developing a PCR-based diagnostic kit that can single-handedly identify a range of multidrug resistant tuberculosis strains. Researchers at FIB-SOL Life Technologies are working to develop effective, low-cost bio-fertilizers. Purius Nanosystems Pvt. Ltd. is looking to develop point-of-care diagnostic devices for DNA-based testing that integrate semiconductor based biosensors and microfluidics. The company's team leader, G Purushothaman said, "This is a dream come true for me. I wanted to be an entrepreneur right after my bachelor's. I have finally got an opportunity to do so now." Graduate students from the Department of Biotechnology, IIT-M, have started three out of these four companies.

Applications for the bio-incubator are accepted year round. A screening committee evaluates the applications on several criteria—technical merit, proof of expertise, economic viability, funding and compatibility with the incubator. Selected start-ups are incubated for a minimum of three years. "This is a great initiative. There is a steep learning curve for start-ups. The incubator makes it easier by providing everything we need in one place—a good facility, proper technical mentoring and much-needed guidance about administrative and legal matters," said Kavitha Sairam, team leader of FIB-SOL Life Technologies.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) announced a 55% hike in fellowships for 15 schemes in the first week of December 2014. The UGC is the second body to increase fellowships—the Department of Science and Technology (DST) increased stipends for young scientists by roughly 60% this October. These fellowship hikes have been granted after a year long, concerted campaign by research scholars across the country, who connected and collaborated largely through social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

"Hundreds of research students across India have put their efforts into the movement to make it a success. In the beginning, we were not sure of the outcome, but we believed that the Government would listen if substantial number of students actively joined hands," said Anindita Brahma, a graduate student from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The numbers are indeed substantial—more than 27,000 people have extended their support to the cause via Facebook and Twitter. The organizers effectively used these platforms not only to keep the momentum going, but also to connect and actively follow up with funding agency representatives and Ministers from concerned Departments, thus hastening the process.

The students welcomed the announcements from DST & UGC. "It is a reasonable increase. Even though it is less that what we demanded, it is higher than what many expected," said Pankaj Jain, the academic secretary of the IISc Student Council, which has spearheaded the campaign. PhD students funded through DST will now receive Rs 25,000 per month, up from Rs 16,000, and research associates and postdocs will now be paid Rs 40,000 per month, an increase of Rs 16,000. "This is a good move for science. Higher salaries will enable us to retain more people who are interested in science and not lose them to more economically attractive jobs," said Sarita Gupta, Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, MS University of Baroda.

What remains a sore point however, according to Jain, is the date of implementation. While the DST stipends will come into effect retrospectively from October 1, UGC is yet to confirm the date of implementation. Previous increases (the last one was four years ago) have been granted retrospectively from April of the corresponding year, and many students, especially senior PhD students expect the same this time around. Intense negotiations are on to sort the matter out.

Meanwhile, researchers now hopefully await similar news from other departments and funding bodies including the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and others, which fund large numbers of research scholars across the country. They also await clarity on several fellowships for minorities, and fellowships for IITs, NITs, IISc and IISERs. Efforts are also on to negotiate an annual increase in pay. "There is no point of a one-time increase, until the next protest," said Supriya Khedkar, a PhD student at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore.

Sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—an anxiety disorder normally triggered by a traumatic experience—often lose their ability to discriminate between safe and dangerous stimuli, responding with intense fear to sensory cues that pose no threat but remind them of the trauma. Just like the allegorical cat, which once scalded by hot water, fears even cold water.

Brain imaging studies have shown a relationship between this condition and hyperactivity in the amygdalae—brain structures that process emotional reactions—but to date studies have not been able to uncover the underlying cause.

Now researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) have carried out fear conditioning studies on rats that have revealed the neuronal mechanism that causes this shift from fear of specific stimuli to a more generalised fear, promising insights into conditions like PTSD. The study shows that individual neurons in the amygdalae of rats exposed to strong electrical shocks lose the ability to distinguish between cues for safety and danger, causing them to become fearful of non-threatening stimuli.

"Being afraid of dangerous stimuli is not a problem. It's being afraid of things that are not dangerous that is the pathology," said Sumantra Chattarji, who co-authored a paper on the research with Supriya Ghosh, a graduate student. "This balance is important because this is precisely what goes wrong in PTSD."

In the study, rats were exposed to two similar but distinct sounds, one of which was paired with a mild electric shock. The rats quickly learned to discriminate between the two, showing greater fear response to the danger tone 24 hours later even though the shock was removed. But when the shock strength was doubled, the same animals lost their ability to discriminate and began showing a greater fear response to the safe tone too.

To understand the neuronal basis for the change the researchers recorded electrical signals from individual neurons in the rats' amygdalae. They discovered that following mild shock conditioning 42% exhibited increased firing in response to the danger tone, while 6% failed to discriminate and 51% did not respond at all. But after doubling the shock strength, many of the cue-specific neurons lost their ability to discriminate, with their numbers falling to 32%, while the number that responded equally to both stimuli rose to 30%, resulting in a more generalised fear reaction.

When faced with the potential for greater danger animals tend to err on the side of caution by generalising their fear response. This study suggests this is reflected at the neuronal level, according to Chattarji.

In addition, the researchers found that fear conditioning caused the response time of neuronal reactions to stimuli to shorten. This suggests a strengthening of connections between the thalamus (which is responsible for relaying sensory signals) and the amygdalae, rather than the longer connection via the auditory cortex, an area of the brain involved in more complex processing of auditory information.

"The connection from the thalamus to the amygdala is the quick and dirty solution. It's not very accurate but it's fast," said Chattarji. "You can't wait until the data is all available. It's a noisy world and you've got one shot at it. The pressure to do it quickly is enormous when it comes to survival."

The researchers also found that it was possible to induce the same fear generalisation when the rats were conditioned with a strong shock by using a pharmacological substance called forskolin. The drug activates the cyclic adenosine monophosphate – protein kinase A (cAMP-PKA) signalling pathway in the amygdala. The researchers found that activating the pathway while using mild shock conditioning still resulted in similar fear generalisation to that found when using a strong shock. This could provide a starting point for pharmacological solutions to conditions like PTSD says Chattarji.

"I don't think it's the only one, but it could be a potential target," he added. "One of the experiments I would like to try next is to do forced blocking of the pathway and apply a strong shock to see if generalisation still occurs."

Eminent and high profile scientists from more than 30 Commonwealth nations congregated in Bangalore for the first Commonwealth Science Conference (CSC) in almost 50 years. The last CSC was held in 1967 in Oxford and had less than 80 participants. With over 300 registered participants, CSC 2014 is the largest event that the Royal Society has organized overseas. Supported by the Government of India and The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, the 4-day conference served as a platform to showcase research excellence in Commonwealth science, forge collaborations, inspire young scientists and discuss science policies.

Presentations by students from different Commonwealth countries on diverse topics kicked off the conference at the Indian Institute of Science on the afternoon of 25^th November, 2014, followed by a lively networking session. The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, formally inaugurated the conference that evening alongside Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, the special guest at the inaugural. "This Conference marks a point of inflection for the way in which the Commonwealth can collectively benefit from the rich talent and wisdom of its scientific community," said Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, in his speech at the opening ceremony. Keynote lectures were delivered by Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society and CNR Rao, Professor & Honorary President, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.

Plenary lectures by outstanding researchers from fields as diverse as paleobiology, material science and climate studies marked the start of each day. Raghavendra Gadagkar concluded his plenary talk on a heartening and well-received note: "Even those of us who are not very well endowed with grants and facilities can do very interesting science".

A special session "Entrepreneurship and innovation in India session" sought to highlight the technological progress made by India. Speakers at the session included Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw from Biocon, N. R. Narayana Murthy from Infosys and K Kasturirangan from ISRO. Kirsten Coupland, a student from Australia, said that the session was very inspiring, and it was particularly encouraging to hear from Mazumdar-Shaw, a successful woman entrepreneur.

Parallel sessions were held on focused topics including global health issues, mathematics and computation, materials and biomolecular assemblies. In the session on biomolecular assemblies, Satyajit Mayor from the National Centre for Biological Sciences described over a decade of work understanding the organisation of molecules on the cell membrane. Peter Colman FRS from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia, talked about structure-based drug design for influenza and his more recent work on apoptosis.

All sessions were well attended and the halls were abuzz with scientific exchanges between sessions. "We are usually confined to our own fields. It is very refreshing to hear about research in different fields from so many distinguished speakers," said Alick Muvundika, a PhD student from University of Central Lancashire, UK, a sentiment echoed by most other participants.

Can planting trees help offset climate change? Although airline companies advocate that planting trees will reduce your carbon footprint, the results from mathematical modelling are mixed. In a recent editorial in Current Science, Govindaswamy Bala at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore reviewed the past ten years of work that examines the effects of forestry on global warming. His conclusion: planting trees mayhelp ameliorate climate change, but it is far from a complete solution. Depending on context, afforestation may also hurt.

The notion that planting trees will help us cool the earth makes intuitive sense, which is one reason why this idea has grown popular. Forests act as carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus partially offsetting our own industrial and agricultural pollution. They also cause local cooling through transpiration, as water travels from roots to leaves and evaporates into the surrounding air. Anyone who has walked down a tree-lined street will know the difference trees make to ambient temperature.

Global warming is not just a function of greenhouse gas density in the earth's atmosphere, however, but also of the reflective capacity of the earth's surface. The dark leaves and branches of forests absorb light, and consequently radiate more heat into their surroundings than reflective surfaces such as ice or snow. Taking all factors into consideration, severalmodelspublished in the past decade have suggested that global afforestation would have the net effect of warming up the planet rather than cooling it. This effect is location-dependent. Closer to the poles, where reflective snow cover predominates in winter, planting trees has a net warming effect. Closer to the equator, the effects of transpiration dominate, and planting trees has a net cooling effect on the globe.

Bala asserts, however, that this does not mean we should forget about protecting forests in the temperate to polar latitudes. Forests are beneficial in terms of the biodiversity that they foster and the human livelihoods that they sustain, Bala emphasises – they just are not an adequate solution to climate change. "Under high emission scenarios, trees don't have the potential to remove the carbon that is coming from fossil fuels," Bala says. If fossil fuel emissions continue to rise at current rates, carbon dioxide density in the atmosphere will reach 700-800 ppm by the year 2100, nearly twice what we have today. "When you reach that level, how much can planting trees actually help you?" he asks.

Rather, Bala suggests, we need to be diverting resources into the development of renewable energy sources. "I think wind and solar energy certainly have tremendous potential for countries like India," he says, citing recent success stories from Tamil Nadu that have addressed power shortages in the state through wind energy generation. "We have reached only one tenth of the potential for wind and solar energy."

Malaria claims more than 6,00,000 lives every year. Anti-malarial drugs currently prescribed and used for treating the disease suffer from low bioavailability, high toxicity and side effects, and are difficult to administer, necessitating the search for more effective alternatives. Researchers from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai designed special nanostructures for targeted delivery of anti-malarial drugs. They have since shown that surprisingly, even in the absence of drugs, these nanostructures show 70% efficacy against the disease. Their recent investigations show that the nanostructures rapidly and selectively target Plasmodium-infected red blood cells (iRBCs) and severely impair the parasite while restoring the elasticity of the iRBCs.

Most anti-malarials do not dissolve readily in water. Their low solubility poses a challenge in designing formulations that can be administered intravenously. To overcome this problem, researchers from ICT, Mumbai led by Vandana B Patravale designed nanostructured lipid carriers—special nanostructures that result from a blended solid-liquid lipid mixture—containing gyceryl-dilaurate, a non-toxic plant extract found in vegetable oils that is commonly used in cosmetics. Working with Sulabha Pathak and Shobhona Sharma from TIFR, Mumbai, they tested the efficacy of drug-loaded glyceryl-dilaurate nanostructured lipid carriers (GDL-NLCs) in treating malaria in mice and attempted to understand how these carriers weaken the parasite in the absence of drugs.

By tagging the GDL-NLCs with fluorescent dyes, they showed that in mice, iRBCs take up the nanostructures more readily compared to normal, uninfected RBCs or other types of cells. Further investigations revealed that the GDL-NLCs localized in the parasite mitochondrion, and their uptake disrupted the tubulovesicular network—a channel established by the parasite for obtaining vital nutrients. While the uptake pathway is still not known, their work sheds some light on the effect of the GDL-NLCs on the parasite.

As the parasites mature in the bloodstream, infected RBCs (iRBCs) lose elasticity. This loss of flexibility could lead to blockages in the patient's blood vessels, precipitating disease-related complications like cerebral malaria and multiple organ failure. GDL-NLC uptake by the iRBCs also has the important consequence of restoring their elasticity. "This is a very significant observation. Since the iRBCs become flexible again, many problems associated with acute malaria may be addressed," said Shobhona Sharma, Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, TIFR. It is suspected that the disruption of the tubulovesicular network plays a role in this dramatic decrease of the RBC rigidity caused by the parasite.

Finally, the researchers studied the effectiveness of treatment by using the GDL-NLCs as carriers for two combinations of antimalarials recommended by WHO. As low as 5 to 20 percent of the currently recommended dosage was sufficient for complete parasite control and survival. "In medicine it is important to treat the disease effectively, but it is equally important not to cause any other adverse effects. Targeted treatment and lower dosages make both possible," said Sharma.

GDL-NLCs are easy and inexpensive to fabricate. With their proven ability to deliver water-insoluble drugs, their specificity in targeting infected RBCs and their antimalarial activity, GDL-NLCs promise to address many of the challenges in treating malaria.

C-reactive protein (CRP), produced by the liver and found in blood plasma, is used as a biomarker to indicate inflammation in the body. High CRP concentrations indicate a high risk of cardiovascular diseases and other infections. Hospitals use different methods to measure CRP, but these are expensive and lack specificity. A recent study by Ajay Sood, S Asokan and their graduate students S Sridevi and K S Vasu, from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), may lead to significantly cheaper CRP tests with better sensitivity and larger sensing range.

The researchers have developed a sensor platform that can accurately detect CRP concentrations over a wide range using etched Fiber Bragg Grating (eFBG) (a highly skilled make over of the optical fibers that enable high speed internet). It can be used to detect other proteins as well. The Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) is a cylindrical tube with a 'core' surrounded by a 'cladding'. The IISc research team had previously developed an etched Fiber Bragg Grating (eFBG) with a graphene oxide layer as the cladding. This had the effect of substantially improving the sensitivity, and made eFBG ideal candidates for biosensors. Taking this a step further, the researchers demonstrated the use of the eFBG with graphene oxide as a CRP detector.

FBGs have the remarkable property of reflecting a single wavelength of light among a range of wavelengths, and transmitting the rest. Which particular wavelength it reflects depends on its effective refractive index (RI)—a number that depends on the refractive indices of the materials used to make the FBG and the grating characteristics. For detecting CRP, the researchers have used an eFBG coated with graphene oxide and anti-CRP antibodies. When exposed to a test medium, the effective RI of the grating changed, leading to a corresponding change in the reflected wavelength. This change in reflected wavelength was found to have a linear correlation with the concentration of CRP. This method accurately detects and measures low concentrations of CRP, even in the presence of various interfering factors like urea, creatinine and glucose.

"The eFBG sensors are not new to the research community. What is new is achieving better sensitivity by using graphene oxide, a nanomaterial. We can use this platform for detecting various proteins by coating the graphene oxide with corresponding antibodies. The physics of detection remains the same", explains Sood, Professor at the Department of Physics, IISc.

Unlike older detection techniques, this method is not affected by the colour and composition of the medium used in assays and is highly specific and sensitive. The portability of the equipment is crucial in a country like India. It helps provide better diagnostic services to those for whom visiting a hospital may be a challenge. "CRP test instruments used in hospitals are small enough to be carried easily. But they are expensive. The new platform technology can lead to instruments that can be made portable and cheaper", says Asokan, Professor, Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics and Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber Physical Systems, IISc.

Ever wanted to know which branch of the ancient human migration your ancestors belonged to? Attendees at last year's NGBT conference in Delhi traced their roots during the meeting, in possibly the fastest such study—3 days from sample collection to delivery of results.

Sekar Seshagiri and other organisers of the Next-Gen Genomics & Bioinformatics Technologies (NGBT) 2013 Conference set out to demonstrate real-time genomics at work so that participants could get a flavour of what these new technologies were, and how fast they could work. They collected cheek-swab samples (with consent) on Day 1 of the conference, with the aim of determining the mitochondrial haplotype of each sample. On day 2 the samples were put through a Miseq Illumina desktop sequencer in Cochin. The data were then sent to California, where they were analysed by a team of bioinformaticians, and the haplogroup data were sent back just in time for the closing ceremony on day 3 of NGBT 2013.

"As expected 'M' was the dominant haplogroup, but we had many others including one participant with 'L' haplogroup, demonstrating the true international nature of the conference", says Seshagiri.

NGBT is now in its 4th year, and is typically organised by the SciGenom Research Foundation (SGRF) and local hosting institutions in different Indian cities each year. This year, the conference will be organised by the SGRF, the Institute of Bioinformatics and NIMHANS (also the venue) in Bangalore between 17-19 November 2014. Features of NGBT 2014 include a 2-day pre-conference bioinformatics workshop, poster sessions, various conference sessions on techniques, a job fair for students, and stalls and booths by numerous vendors, including several internationally reputed journals like PLOS One and ELife.

The meeting started with a focus on sequencing in 2011, but has since expanded to include broadly all genomics technologies, both mature and emerging. It also now includes more talks on agricultural and animal sciences topics, including conservation biology, cancer biology and metagenomics applications.

The program lists a number of invited speakers, both from India and aboard. Stephan Schuster, from NTU, Singapore, who uncovered the genome of the extinct wooly mammoth, will discuss next generation sequencing technologies. K Thangaraj from CCMB, Hyderabad will talk about the complex origin of Indian populations and its profound medical implications. The meeting also features talks on medical genomics, including V Mohan from the MV Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai, who will explain the genomics of diabetes, and Partha P Majumdar from the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics who will discuss the genomics of oral cancer.

This year, the organisers plan to conduct another real-time sequencing study at the conference. This year's project will look at 8 SNPs that include 5 that can assess type 2 diabetes risk, 1 SNP associated with the ability to taste cilantro, another associated with body odour or the lack of it and the final SNP associated with the ability to smell fruity odour. Participants of the study will also be able to get their individual data in early 2015 through a password protected web portal, similar to last year. Seshagiri says that last year the excitement about the study was much more than anticipated—"We aimed for 50-60 samples but got over 80 samples". This year they are better prepared, and can process up to 300 samples.

The organisers believe that bioinformatics is an area where India has a real opportunity to contribute to the world, much like the information technology sector, and they hope NGBT 2014 will convey this sense of excitement and possibility.

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and Villanova University, Pennsylvania, have recently uncovered how the evolution of geckos in the Indian subcontinent was influenced by a significant geological event that occurred about 55 million years ago—the collision of the Indian tectonic plate with Eurasia.

Besides uniting the two continents, this head-on collision resulted in other dramatic changes: the birth of the Himalayas, the onset of severe summers and the strengthening of the monsoon. These changes have, in turn, altered not just the composition of the subcontinent's plants and animals due to migration, but have also affected the way in which they have since evolved.

Signatures of evolutionary changes are carried by genes, which accumulate mutations as they are passed down from generation to generation. These signatures can be deciphered by sequencing genes, which, in turn, can be used to construct trees—phylogenetic trees—that reflect the evolutionary history of a group of species; phylogenetics may also provide clues about when and where species diverged from each other. "People have speculated about how this collision may have affected animals, but now, with phylogenetics, we can study how specific groups of animals were affected by certain specific events", argues Praveen Karanth, whose lab at IISc led the study.

Karanth's graduate student, Ishan Agarwal, the first author of two recent papers based on the study, collected geckos, among the more diverse and colourful lizards, from two different groups: Cyrtodactylus from the Himalayas and northeastern India, and Cyrtopodion, from the arid parts of northwestern India. The researchers sequenced multiple genes to construct phylogenetic trees for each of these groups. Explaining the rationale for using more than one gene in their analyses, Karanth says, "The history of a species is really the history of all the genes put together."

The results show a significant role for post-collision events for the evolution of these geckos. The ancestor of the Cyrtodactylus geckos found in India moved from Eurasia when the Himalayas were just beginning to rise. The descendents of this species underwent a period of rapid diversification in the next few million years to form genetically distinct sub-groups, a process more pronounced in northeastern India. These speciation events may have been driven by the isolation caused by the rising mountains and the valleys formed by the new snow-fed rivers. While the Himalayas themselves served as a barrier to the geckos' dispersal in the north, the researchers also speculate that their invasion further into the subcontinent may have been halted by the unfavourable alluvial nature of the Indo-Gangetic plain.

Cyrtopodion too moved into the subcontinent following the collision of the plates. However, diversification within Cyrtopodion occurred more recently—about five to ten million years ago—in the drier parts of northwestern India. With the rise of the Himalayas, rainfall in the sub-continent became more seasonal, scanty and patchy in its distribution. The Indus Division, in what is now Pakistan and northwestern India, suffered the brunt of this change and became increasingly arid. While aridity was not good news for most plants and animals, it was fertile ground for the diversification of these dry-region geckos.

This study has also added to our list of known geckos from India. "We have genetic evidence for twenty-four new species between these two studies", says Agarwal. But the discovery of that many new species reveals how little we know about our biological wealth. "The biodiversity of the whole of India is obscenely underestimated", he adds. Karanth agrees. "There has not been enough fieldwork", he says. Karanth also believes that the underestimation of our biodiversity is because many species look almost identical even to the trained eyes of a taxonomist. Studies like these that combine rigorous field observations with molecular data are, therefore, crucial in obtaining a more accurate picture of the diversity of our plants and animals.

New work by ecologists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) , Bangalore suggests that riverside habitats are particularly vulnerable to invasion by the exotic plant Lantana camara. The adaptable woody shrub has spread inexorably across parts of Asia, Africa and Oceania over the past two hundred years, edging out native species as management strategies struggle to contain its growth. A recent study, published in The Journal of Biosciences by Geetha Ramaswami and R. Sukumar, found that although lantana is widely spread, the plant tends to concentrate alongside rivers. This may be because lantana seeds spread through moving water, or else simply because riverbanks present a favourable moist habitat. Management of the invasive species could therefore be refined by targeting river-side habitats as high risk zones.

"It's really difficult to get rid of lantana," explains Ramaswami, a graduate student at the Centre for Ecological Studies, IISc. "Even after fires, if the above ground part of the plant is burnt, it'll just sprout back from the root because the root is protected by soil." The latter property is called coppicing: like the mythical hydra, so long as the root remains intact, lantana has the ability to sprout new heads. Spread of the plant is also aided by copious seed production and by a high degree of genetic diversity, which allows lantana to adapt to diverse habitats.

A century of labour-intensive management, which involves manually pulling out plants with the root system, has done little to halt the expansion of lantana, within India or in its other adopted habitats. Given this, one possible way forward is to identify factors in the environment that allow lantana to gain a foothold. Earlier work by Ramaswami and Sukumar in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary found that lantana density tended to rise after periods of drought and fire, as well as with proximity to streams. Expanding upon these results, the present study looked in detail at the impact of fire history, rainfall history, shade from adjoining trees and distance from streams on lantana density across a larger and more heterogenous area in Mudumalai. All of these factors have been linked to the spread of invasive species in the past: just as fire can open up space for a novel species to intrude, moderate levels of sunlight (controlled by shade) and plentiful water can allow new plants to take root and survive.

The strongest link found by the present study in Mudumalai was between lantana density and proximity to water. "We have shown a positive correlation with water bodies and streams," says Ramaswami. The impact of fire history, however, appears to be less straightforward. Although the immediate result of fire may be to give lantana space to expand, frequent fires over a period of many years do not appear to be conducive to lantana growth. Clearly, the study opens the way for new avenues of questions. Proximity to streams itself can mean multiple things: lantana may be taking advantage of the increased water supply, or it may also use water as means of dispersing seeds to newer areas. "We generally think about lantana spreading through birds or human vectors," explains Ramaswami, "but water is possibly another medium by which lantana is spreading to completely new areas."

The study has implications for lantana management, which could potentially focus its efforts on stream-side habitats in order to control the plant's spread. In addition, however, there are many unanswered questions about how lantana might be impacting the ecology of water bodies. "Woody plants like lantana have long-term consequences for streams," explains Ramaswami. Invasive woody plants with spreading root systems may impact how ground water is stored, for instance, or reduce stream flow. "They can change the hydrology of the area. This should open up an entire slew of research questions that need to be pursued."

The fifth edition of the annual Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS)-Bangalore will be held at the J N Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science, from 25^th to 28^th September, 2014. This vibrant conference brings together enthusiastic young conservation researchers from Asia and Africa and provides them a unique platform to showcase their research through talks and posters, to network and connect with peers and senior researchers, and to engage with conservation organizations.

"This year we have included more exciting, new and fun elements to the conference, most of which are technology driven" said V V Robin, one of the five members of the organizing committee. Efforts are on to use technology in many innovative ways to enhance the participants' experience and reach and interact with a wider audience. Upon registration, researchers provide their field site locations, which are integrated into an online map. A responsive live mobile site will allow registered participants easy access to the schedule, abstracts and workshops. The mobile site also hosts a feedback system, which will allow participants to provide instant feedback about the talks and the workshops they attend. Attendees can also blog about their experiences at the conference on the SCCS-Bangalore website. SMS alerts will be used to issue reminders about workshop venues and times to participants.

All registered participants are assigned a unique QR code, which will be displayed on their conference badges. A mobile app to scan the QR code using cellphones was proposed by student volunteers and designed by Jaideep Joshi, a graduate student at the Centre for Ecological Studies in IISc, Bangalore. This will enable organizers to scan the codes to collect ID details at workshops and in food queues, making administration paperless. In the pipeline are plans to allow participants to scan other people's QR codes and access their abstract pages and information for instant networking. If users are logged into the SCCS site when they scan a QR code, the information shows up on their account page, allowing them to potentially collate information about all the talks and posters they find interesting at the conference.

A live twitter feed (#sccsbng2014) will keep those who are not present at the conference in the loop. The evening plenaries, which cover popular conservation topics, are open to the public for attendance. In addition, IndiaBioScience plans live streaming of all plenary talks at www.sccs-bng.org/watch.

The first international sister conference to the long-running SCCS-Cambridge, SCCS-Bangalore currently distinguishes itself by being the only one to have attendees who may not present talks or posters. It also offers the largest number of workshops by far. Organizer Jahnavi Joshi feels the diversity of workshops adds a lot of value to the conference. The mix of natural and social sciences—at presentations, talks and workshops—is also unique to the Bangalore chapter and reflects the local research ethos.

A short film by Kalyan Varma and Prasenjeet Yadav will capture the buzz and energy that permeates this young and exciting meeting. SCCS promises to show the way forward for conferences to be more engaging and current, and up their cool quotient.

Pollutants from oil spills, shipping activities and industrial effluents could be the reason for genetic damage in snails of Goa, research has found. The extent of genetic damage in snails could serve as a measure of the health of a marine ecosystem, it says.

A team of researchers collected snails of the species Morulagranulata from nine locations along the coast of Goa – a major tourism and seafood industry hotspot of India. The team learnt that the extent of damage in the genetic material (DNA) of these snails increased with rising levels of toxic pollutants along the coast.

"When toxic contaminants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are taken up by marine organisms, the snails will try to metabolize the contaminants for subsequent elimination. The toxins are degraded, ultimately converted into by-products and removed from the body," explains A. Sarkar, lead author of the study at Global Enviro-Care, Goa. "But during their metabolism, reactive intermediate stages are formed, resulting in DNA strand breaks."

Sarkar and co-workers used molecular biomarker techniques to assess breaks in the DNA isolated from snails and determined its integrity. They observed that DNA integrity reduced by as much as 56% at one of the most polluted of the chosen sites (Hollant) compared to the non-polluted, reference site (Arambol) located farther away from the industrial belt. They found the concentration of PAHs in sediments to be highest around Hollant (5.17 μg/g) and lowest at Arambol (1.65 μg/g) among all sites.

Snails were chosen because there are plenty of these "resident organisms" that remain attached to rocks and they are the "representative organisms of a particular location," Sarkar told IndiaBioScience. "By determining their DNA integrity, we can evaluate the state of pollution in a coastal region. If the DNA integrity is lower, the snails have been more exposed to toxic contaminants and we can identify their resident spot as a highly polluted one," he adds. The research was published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety journal.

Sarkar and co-workers are now planning to evaluate the response of snails, oysters and other key species in the marine environment towards PAHs as well as other contaminants (such as heavy metals, cadmium, copper and lead). They are looking to combine different molecular techniques and an interdisciplinary approach to study the biological response of these species.

N. A. Aravind Madhyastha, who works on land and freshwater snails at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in Bangalore, says: "This is one of the few studies from India on how pollution in marine environments affects snails at the genetic level. Most studies concentrate on the impact of anthropogenic activities at a species or community level. This has focused on their impact at the genetic level."

Thirty women scientists gathered at NIAS for the duration of the workshop, hailing primarily from research institutes and companies in South India. The vibrant group, full of discussion and questions for the workshop speakers and organizers, ranged in work experience from a single year to thirty years, studying disciplines from plant ecology to applied electronics to astrophysics. Sessions included career acceleration, life/work balance, negotiation strategies, proposal writing, mentorship, leadership, peer review and networking. These sessions used interactive strategies developed internationally by United States-based COACh faculty, combined with India-specific knowledge brought in by female scholars based in Bangalore. A similar workshop, with 70 participants, was held in Delhi in the first week of September.

The Department of Science and Technology and the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum plan to expand career development workshops for Indian women using COACh strategies as a seed, with past workshop participants acting as future trainers. In the concluding session, V.S. Ramamoorthy, ex-Secretary DST and currently at NIAS, said that the most productive time of an academic's early career, between 25-35 years of age, was also the period when women faced great personal pressures, which sometimes lead to their exit from academia. He hoped that initiatives like this workshop would help women face challenges during this critical phase.

A ray of hope against tuberculosis—a multi-lab team lead by Rup Lal at Delhi University has reported the first successful bacterial synthesis of a rifamycin analog. This study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry describes the genetic modification of the natural producer of rifamycin—the bacterium Amycolatopsis mediterranei to produce the analog 24-desmethyl rifamycin B.

Rifampicin is a semisynthetic derivative of rifamycin B, which since its discovery in 1960s has been the mainstay for TB treatment. Rifampicin inhibits prokaryotic RNA polymerase and thereby DNA dependent RNA synthesis—a key feature that makes the antibiotic effective against even latent Mycobacterium. Many derivatives of rifamycin B have been synthesized over the past decades, some effective, some less so. As the pathogens eventually develop resistance to each new analog, there is perpetual demand for new antibiotics and analogs.

"Chemists couldn't do much", said Prof. Lal. "Rifamycin B has a complex aromatic ring structure, with a naphthalene core spanned by an aliphatic chain. This structure makes it less conducive to chemical modifications," he added.

The sequential biosynthesis of the antibiotic in bacteria provided a gateway. The antibiotic is synthesized by an operon of 5 genes called type 1 polyketide synthases (PKS). These genes add acetate or propionate units to an aromatic core structure to synthesize rifamycin. According to Prof. Lal, "It is possible to replace the domain that adds acetate with that of the one that adds propionate, thereby tricking the bacteria to produce an analog".

In theory, this seemed simple—genes can be swapped by homologous recombination, commonly done in other bacteria. A. mediterranei, however proved notoriously difficult to manipulate. It took the team nearly 20 years to generate a clone of the bacteria producing the desired analog. This clone had replaced the indigenous gene that adds propionate to the growing chain with a gene from the rapamycin PKS operon that adds acetate. Chemically the mutant produced 24-desmethyl rifamycin B (simplistically rifamycin minus a methyl group). This was then chemically converted to two of its semisynthetic derivatives i.e. 24-desmethyl rifamycin S and 24-desmethyl rifampicin.

The analogs of rifamycin B and its derivatives analyzed by mass spectrometry showed the expected difference in the masses compared to rifamycin B. The structure of the analogs was further confirmed by NMR studies done in collaboration with Taifo Muhmud of Oregon State University.

When the analogs were assayed for their antibacterial activity, both 24-desmethylrifamycin S and 24-desmethylrifampicin proved effective different bacteria, including Staphylococcus. More satisfyingly, the MDR strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was also susceptible.

Though exciting, it is still early stages. While the team prepares for mice and clinical studies, it is also working towards increasing the yields of the analog. Currently, the yield is nearly 1000X lower than commercial production of rifamycin from A. mediterranei. This could be a huge drawback if the analogs were to be produced as a therapeutic drug. Lal, however, is very optimistic. He feels that yields can be increased, simply by producing the analog in the industrial strain of the bacteria. This however needs to be tested.

Regardless of how and when this analog hits the market as a treatment option, this study has surely broken the shackles of cumbersome chemical modifications and shown the possibility of synthesizing antibiotic analogs biologically, thereby opening the doors to development of myriad modifications and analogs to continue the fight against tuberculosis.

Small aggregates of the amyloid beta peptide, called oligomers, have been implicated as the initiators of Alzheimer's disease. Getting a clear picture of their structure can help to design drugs that target them. They are incredibly short-lived, unfortunately, and disintegrate in a matter of minutes. Even sophisticated imaging tools are unequal to the task.

Two research teams from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research joined hands, and techniques, to successfully probe the structure of these toxic oligomers. "We have been listening to each other's work for several years now. We realized that we have two techniques—fast fluorescence techniques and solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy—that are completely complementary," said P. K. Madhu, whose team specializes in ssNMR spectroscopy. We thought that if we marry both these techniques then we have a unique advantage," said P. K. Madhu, who led the ssNMR half of the collaboration.

Fast fluorescence techniques quickly identify the oligomers, in a matter of seconds, even in very dilute samples. They cannot, however provide good structural resolution. While ssNMR spectroscopy can map structures with atomic precision, it can take several days to analyze a sample using this technique. The oligomers picked out using fluorescence had to be flash frozen before they could be analyzed by ssNMR. "This was the trickiest part. We spent more than eight months coming up with the optimal conditions in which this process could be carried out successfully without ruining the sample," said Bappaditya Chandra, a graduate student who worked on both techniques.

"To our knowledge this the first time that these two techniques have been combined to study quasi-stable protein structures. It is not limited to amyloid beta oligomers and can be used to probe any short-lived protein," said Sudipto Maiti, whose group performed the fast fluorescence experiments.

By uniting the strengths of these reciprocal techniques, the researchers compared the structure of the transient oligomers with that of the larger aggregates of the peptide, called fibrils, which are more stable and less toxic than the oligomers. They zeroed in on two regions of the peptide that were structurally unique to the oligomers. Curiously enough, most of the known disease-causing mutations can be traced to these very regions of the peptide. "What it suggested to us is that these two regions must play an important role in the interactions that make them toxic," said Maiti.

Their results, published in Angewandte Communications, have important implications for drug design. Among the different types of therapeutic treatments that are being developed to fight Alzheimer's, some are designed to target the amyloid beta peptides. "Our NMR data provides signposts to the vulnerable regions. Only a drug that affects these regions is likely to be in business," concluded Maiti.