We welcome you to the August edition of our monthly newsletter! Each month, we bring forth new initiatives and announcements, and this month is no exception.
We are thrilled to announce a unique new initiative: 'PhD café,' is a one-of-a-kind virtual seminar series for PhD researchers in the life sciences across India, supported by the Company of Biologists. More on this in the newsletter!
We also have more exciting updates: we recently announced the winners of the first edition of our science art competition ‘Create-it!,’ and hosted a live science-art activity with Parshati Patel. The IndiaBioscience team had a little fun too with the fluid art activity! We are also proud to introduce She Inspires! awardees, a pilot initiative by IndiaBioscience and Rukhmabai initiatives to support women scientists who are committed to engaging with school children in their community. While the call for the 5th IndiaBioscience Outreach Grants (IOG) program has now closed, we are diligently reviewing the applications. We released the International Grants Awareness Program (iGAP) Dispatches (Part VI) this month, so take a look at new opportunities you can apply for. And, we are happy to welcome four new interns to the IndiaBioscience team, making it a full-house again!
Finally, mark your calendars for the highly-anticipated 17th Young Investigators' Meeting (YIM 2025), which will be held in Agra, Uttar Pradesh from 03-07 March 2024, in partnership with Shiv Nadar University (SNU).
If you're interested in contributing an article, producing a podcast, or organising a workshop with us, please reach out at hello[at]indiabioscience[dot]org. Connect with us on social media [X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube] or join our mailing list to stay in the loop.
Stay engaged and enable change. We are delighted to have you as part of our community and hope you enjoy this edition of our newsletter. And in the spirit of the Olympics, whether you view your career as a sprint or a marathon, it's important to enjoy the ride!
Until next month, happy reading!
Networking and Mentorship
Save the date for the 17th Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM 2025), Agra
We are excited to announce that the 17th Young Investigators' Meeting (YIM 2025) will be held in Agra, Uttar Pradesh from 03-07 March, 2025 in partnership with Shiv Nadar University.
The meeting will open soon for applications from YIs and Postdoctoral Fellows, and we look forward to your applications!
If you are an organisation, university, institute or company, and want to engage with YIM 2025, get in touch with us at hello[at]indiabioscience[dot]org to find out more. We look forward to hearing from you.
We are excited to launch 'PhD café', a one-of-a-kind seminar series for PhD researchers in life sciences across India; the series will host ~60 pre-selected PhD researchers (in advanced stages of their PhD and close to graduation) to present their work to experts and the wider community in various fields of experimental biology.
Supported by the Company of Biologists, this five-day online series from 23-27 September 2024 will showcase experimental biology-related work being done by PhD researchers in India; with potential immediate and long-term gains for the broader life science ecosystem in India. You can register for the series here, the last date to apply to present your research work is 20 August 2024.
The call for the 5th IndiaBioscience Outreach Grants (IOG) program is now closed. The IOG aims to support young investigators, in collaboration with students, science communicators, science artists, and other life science professionals, in their efforts to take science to wider audiences. As we are hard at work reviewing the applications, you can keep a tab on our website for more updates on the awardees and projects!
IndiaBioscience and Rukhmabai Initiatives announced a joint pilot community program last month, She Inspires! This program aims to identify and support women science professionals who are passionate about engaging with school children in their community. We are very happy to share the awardees for this years’ program, and look forward to their sessions!
In a new initiative, IndiaBioscience launched Create-it!, a science-art competition supported by HiMedia Laboratories. With a range of themes from petri art to showcasing science via doodles, we are thankful to all the participants who sent in their entries. We announced the awardees of this competition live in a webinar, and also hosted a science-art fluid art activity with Parshati Patel.
You can see the list of awardees here. We will also be compiling notable entries into an e-compendium, so keep an eye out for more updates!
Premas Life Sciences, in collaboration with IndiaBioscience, hosted a webinar on the 'Certification program on Next-Generation OMICS technologies and applications'. This webinar addressed the role of cutting-edge OMICS techniques in life science research, offering real-time guidance from Mitali Mukherji, IIT Jodhpur, Praveen Gupta, Premas Life Sciences, Rahul Ramekar, Premas Life Sciences and Mohit Mazumder, OmicsLogic India & US. You can access the full recording of the webinar here.
We released the last episode in our much-loved series, RADIO PDF, where we hear from postdoctoral researchers across India and abroad. In the sixth episode, Saurabh Pradhan, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IMBA - Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Vienna, Austria, joins us. You can listen to the episode here.
We're thrilled to announce the launch of our new podcast series, ‘Jugalbandi - A Science Duet.’ In this series, we will bring diverse perspectives and insights through engaging conversations between experts in various scientific fields.
The first episode explores the intricate connections between the development of the mind and well-being, featuring our guests SS Meera from NIMHANS Bangalore, and Hansika Kapoor, a speech-language pathologist and psychologist, respectively. You can listen to the episode here.
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
Starting recently, we bring to you the return of our specially-curated article series: Journey of Young Investigator (JOYI) 2024. JOYI 2024 will feature ten Young Investigators (YIs) who attended YIM 2024, and their journey of doing science in India. We released two articles last month. Scroll down to read them!
Gaurav Sharma is an Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, Telangana. In this fifth article of the Journey Of Young Investigator (JOYI) 2024 series, he shares his journey and challenges of transitioning from DST-INSPIRE Faculty Fellow to a young scientist committed to advancing research in India.
Charukesi Rajulu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology & Bioinformatics at the JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research (JSS AHER), Mysuru. In this fourth article of the Journey Of Young Investigator (JOYI) 2024 series, she shares her journey from an orthodox background, defying societal norms to make a space for herself in plant science in Indian academia.
In our science communication vertical, we published several columns and news articles last month.
Scroll down to get a glimpse of these articles below!
Science Gallery Bengaluru (SGB) bridges the gap between science and art, fostering curiosity and appreciation among young minds. The recent Carbon exhibition exemplifies this by using art to narrate the story of Carbon, facilitated by trained CARBON mediators who engage visitors in meaningful discussions about climate change and the multifaceted role of the element.
In the heart of Bannerghatta National Park, Karnataka, A Rocha India has introduced the Elephant Anti-Depredation Dog Squad (EaDDS) to tackle rising human-elephant conflicts. Utilising trained Belgian Malinois dogs, this initiative aims to preemptively detect and deter elephants from entering farmlands, fostering harmonious coexistence between communities and wildlife.
A research group led by Tamal Das, Associate Professor, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, studied how the cellular environment influences mitochondrial positioning, impacting cellular identity. Their research sheds light on cellular adaptation mechanisms and offers potential therapeutic interventions for diseases characterised by abnormal tissue stiffness, such as cancer and fibrosis.
A recent study by researchers at the Central University of Punjab found abnormal platelet activity in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Using the neurotoxin — rotenone — to simulate PD conditions, researchers shed light on why PD patients have a lower risk of ischaemic strokes and heart attacks, by focusing on the role of platelets in thrombosis.
A research group led by Sandhya P. Koushika, Associate Professor, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, recently discovered the role of three key regulators in the sorting and transport of synaptic vesicle (SV) proteins in neurons of the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. The research sheds light on mechanisms that may relate to neurological disorders such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Our International Grants Awareness Program (iGAP) Dispatches have been bringing to you open grant calls throughout the year! We are happy to present a curated list of few such open international grant opportunities through iGAP Dispatches July 2024 (Part VI). You can find the latest set of dispatches here.
The Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) has announced an HFSP Accelerator Grant. This is an opportunity for Indian scientists to collaborate with 2024 HFSP awardee research teams as ‘Accelerators’. The awardee research teams and accelerators can mutually benefit by sharing their knowledge, experience and skills. The list of HFSP awardees can be found here.
Have you been awarded an international grant? Have you mentored a colleague for their international grant application? We invite stories/anecdotes from Indian life science researchers who have recently or previously been awarded international grants. Your stories could inspire other researchers seeking international funding opportunities. If you are interested in sharing your story or mentorship inputs, please let us know through this form.
Scroll down to read the recent 'Voice from the community' article.
It is perhaps too well known to students, parents and educators alike that the Indian higher education system is highly competitive. While some competition may be unavoidable, the question is — are some aspects of this competitive environment unnecessary, or even toxic? In this article, biology researcher and educator Anil Kumar Challa, from the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi NCR presents a perspective on why a collaborative environment is better than a competitive one.
Anindita Bhadra is a behavioural biologist at the Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata. She also leads the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 at the institution. In this email interview with IndiaBioscience, she throws light on the steps taken to implement the policy, the changes that this has brought, and the challenges ahead.
#EducatorsMonday
On the last Monday of every month, we post a question for educators on all our social media handles. We invite you to post your answers, see responses by others, and enjoy the threads of conversation.
Our question for July was: As an educator, which aspects of NEP 2020 excites you, and which one worries you the most? You can post your response on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
IndiaBioscience hosted a virtual book chat on 12 July 2024 with Andrew Moore, author of the book, ‘The Decarbonization Delusion.’ We had an engaging conversation on carbon, climate change, and closed-loop bioeconomies, prompted by several interesting questions from the audience. Did you know that carbon made a relatively late appearance in the universe? And would you think that Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) may not be better than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) - the difference being car usage versus car manufacture?
If you missed this compelling discussion, find the recording on our YouTube channel here.
Karishma Kaushik, with inputs from colleagues from various biological disciplines, recently wrote a commentary in Nature India, ‘For research success, grants must be fit for purpose’. The article discusses the role of the new central funding agency, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), in governing and financing scientific research in India, and the need for flexible funding systems to accommodate the diverse requirements of various scientific disciplines, particularly in biological sciences.
To sum it up - primates are not planaria - so how can accounting for this in grant schemes positively impact the success of research projects? Read the entire article here.
More at IndiaBioscience
Interns at IndiaBioscience
IndiaBioscience is happy to welcome a new set of interns! With this, we are hosting four interns across our different verticals for the next three months. We look forward to working with them all.
Visitors at IndiaBioscience
We had a visit from our Board member, Rashna Bhandari, Head, Laboratory of Cell Signalling at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad! We always enjoy having the community drop into our office or meeting you at conferences and workshops across India. See an IndiaBioscience team member? Come by and say hi!
Are you following our dedicated thread (#ScienceJobsTuesdays) for jobs, grants and events on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn? And are you subscribed to our monthly Jobs and Internships monthly newsletter? You can subscribe to it here. Let us help you in your search!
We are looking to engage with potential partners for Young Investigators' Meeting (YIM) 2025! If you are an institute, university, company, private enterprise, incubation park or a science collective, get in touch with us!
