News & Events
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Veekshana -a vision to empower
Veekshana is a forum where women faculty members and scientists of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati come together with a passion and a vision to jointly promote women in science. We provide a platform to identify and address any issues that women scientists face in their career path and empower them to overcome them.
The forum was officially announced by Director Prof. K. N. Ganesh on July 25, 2020.
Short term goals:
- Facilitate informal networking among women faculty which can develop into professional/personal support networks (with a sense of Sisterhood)
- Create an open atmosphere where every ‘Female’ of IISERT overcomes the fear/obstacles and realises her inner potential (Expanding the reach of Sisterhood, with informal networks)
- Organise seminar series focusing on Women role models (Inspiring life journeys and career paths) and workshops for awareness on career opportunities and developing required skills
- Facilitate being human by organising Institute level gender sensitization sessions (such as: discussion of case studies of gender inequality in academia, topic based discussion forum)
- Empower to be the change: Ideathon to identify issues faced by local students and try to address them. Our students (in teams) will identify the issues and pitch a possible solution, the top selected issue-solutions will be taken forward to address with the support of IISERT/NGOs.
Long term goals:
- Expand the professional networking to women faculty and scientists in and around Tirupati (by conducting Annual/Bi-annual one/half-day events)
- Develop gender sensitization among students (all students) through quizzes/workshops pertinent to gender statistics etc. in academia.
- Provide career counselling by creating mentor networks/invited speakers that discusses on various career paths, opportunities and provide guidance.
- Organise the creation of student networks to support each other in academics, writing or presentation skills, confidence building etc. (Promote a sense of Sisterhood).
- Reach out to similar forums in other institutes to identify common issues and come up with diverse models of activity.
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IISER Tirupati Science Day 2021
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IISER Tirupati BSMS students win gold at iGEM2020!
A team of BSMS students from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati won the gold medal, the second one for them in a row, at the worldwide synthetic biology competition conducted by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) foundation at Boston (USA).
iGEM initially started as a study course at MIT in 2003 and went on to become a summer competition. Over the years, it has grown and worked for the progress of synthetic biology and towards developing an open community and collaboration. The ten days long "Giant Jamboree" event that concluded last Sunday brought together 239 participating teams from across the world.
The teams presented the exciting results of their projects, which they had worked on during the summer, and IISER Tirupati was one of the undergraduate collegiate teams to win a gold medal. This year being exceptional, all the judging events of the competition were conducted on a virtual portal, and more emphasis was given to computational synthetic biology work involving modeling metabolic system of the microbial world.
The thirteen-member team took the challenge of working from home after the Institute closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was mentored by Prof. B.J. Rao, Prof. G Ambika, and Dr. Raju Mukherjee along with continuous support from the director, Prof. K.N. Ganesh. The team also received generous funding from donors and the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, which they secured by winning the iBEC 2020 grant early this year.
The team worked towards developing a synthetic biology-based solution, "Coli Kaze" for reducing antimicrobial resistance, the next major global health concern the world will experience after COVID-19. Antibiotics make their way into the environment from animal farms, where they are used as growth promoters. The project aimed at combatting antibiotic pollution from farm excreta by degrading the antibiotics using genetically engineered bacteria, while also ensuring safety with regards to the spread of antibiotic resistance by activating a self-destructive module 'kill-switch' post antibiotic degradation.
The team members also sought opinions from leaders and professionals working on antimicrobial resistance, which helped to restructure their objectives. Another important facet of the project was to interact with high school students to give them exposure to the exciting field of synthetic biology. They organized multiple virtual workshops during the summer months.
- Muscle and Diseases
Understanding muscle diseases and developing therapy, an interdisciplinary online conference of stakeholders
Co-Organized by: Ramkumar Sambasivan, IISER, Tirupati
Register here
- Humboldt's Day 2020
Inspired by the global impact of the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859), the International Biogeography Society is launching – International Humboldt Day – an annual celebration of his legacy.
Biogeographers around the world will be celebrating International Humboldt Day during the week of September 12-18, 2020. International Humboldt Day is envisioned as a week of biogeography focused events around the world, that bring together researchers and organizations through the organization of local presentations, activities, and online offerings.
In addition to these global events, IISER Tirupati and NCBS Bangalore are co-organizing an additional set of talks from leading biogeographers.
The talks have been broadly classified into themes, with three talks each day from the 14th to 18th of September.
Details of the events are at: http://www.iisertirupati.ac.in/events/humboldt/ & https://www.ncbs.res.in/events/humboldtsdayindia
All events are online and free for registered participants
Register here: bit.ly/3lBX5wz
More info: http://www.iisertirupati.ac.in/events/humboldt/
OR
https://www.ncbs.res.in/events/humboldtsdayindia
- First Convocation of IISER Tirupati (Virtual Mode)
Date and Time: 26th August, 2020 - 10:20am (Broadcasted on YouTube)The first convocation or graduation ceremony of IISER Tirupati was held on 26th August 2020 at 11.00 am. Thirty five students from the first batch who had joined the 5-year BS-MS programe in Science in August 2015 completed all the academic requirements and were conferred their Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees on that day.
Due to lock down related to spread of COVID-19, the ceremony was held on line. Senators available in Tirupati participated , strictly keeping all safety norms.
Director Prof K N Ganesh, as Chairperson, Senate, virtually awarded the BS and MS degrees to 35 graduating students.
Dr K Kasturirangan, distinguished space scientist, former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation and more recently the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the National Education Policy 2020, delivered the Convocation address to the graduating students, their parents and distinguished invitees online. In his address, he urged the students that as inheritors of a society which blossomed up great values for life and a deep concern for human development they should aspire for deepening and broadening their knowledge and collective team work and be guided by the higher values they believe in.
Dr Kasturirangan presented virtually the Institute Gold Medal for Academic Excellence to Mr. Ranadeep Roy and prize for the best graduating student to Ms. Jalaja Madhusudhanan.
First Convocation Address By Dr. K. KasturiranganProf Ashutosh Sharma, Chairman, Board of Governors of IISER Tirupati congratulated all the graduating students and emphasized on the importance of life-long learning and self-learning and the need to negotiate, adapt, effectively respond and even engineer the changes.
Shri Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Education in his remarks congratulated the students and the Institute. He emphasized the present need to network with other similar institutions like IISER Tirupati has done to build synergy in their academic and research pursuits.
- Subject Enrichment for Members of Andhra Pradesh Biological Science Teachers Forum
Date and Time: 24-25 & 27-29th August, 2020 - 11AM
Organized by:Outreach Team, IISER Tirupati
- 74th Independence Day Celebrations at IISER Tirupati
- Inauguration of CAMOST (Center for Atomic, Molecular, & Optical Sciences & Technologies)
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Tirupati and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati have come together to establish the Center for Atomic, Molecular, & Optical Sciences & Technologies (CAMOST) to address key challenges in frontier areas of AMO sciences and technologies. The formal inauguration of CAMOST takes place at the hands of Dr. Arabinda Mitra (Scientific Secretary, Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India) on August 14th, 2020, on the eve of the 73rd anniversary of the India’s INDEPENDENCE DAY. Researchers from institutions pan-India would collaborate with each other under the aegis of CAMOST. CAMOST is India’s first such center in a University environment. Close cooperation between scientists and engineers from IIT Tirupati, IISER Tirupati and also from several other premier institutes in India would come under CAMOST’s initiatives.
CAMOST Flyer
CAMOST Inauguration Program
- Synapse with Tirupati 2020
Date and Time: July 25 from 2:15 pm (IST) Onwards
Organized by:Department of Biology, IISER Tirupati
- Webinar on Psychological Immune Building during COVID-19
Date and Time: July 11th 2020, 3.00 PM Onwards
Organized by:IISER Tirupati Outreach Team
- Webinar & an interactive session on Virtual Teaching: Effective Communication during COVID-19
Date and Time: July 4th 2020, 3.00 PM Onwards
Organized by:IISER Tirupati Outreach Team
- Webinar on Future Trends in Electrochemistry
Date and Time: May 28, 3.00 PM Onwards
Organized by: Department Of Chemistry, IISER Tirupati
- CHEMBIOSIS 2020 Mini-Conference
Date and Time: May 25, 4.00 PM – 6.30 PM
Organized by: IISER Tirupati
Venue: Online .
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COVID-19 is an emerging infectious disease that has turned into a pandemic. It spreads through droplet transmission of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. It is an RNA virus displaying a spike protein as the major surface protein with significant sequence similarity to SARS-CoV which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. The receptor binding domain of the spike protein interacts with the human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 and is considered as the antigenic determinant for stimulating an immune response. While multiple candidate vaccines are currently under different stages of development, there are no known therapeutic interventions at the moment. This review describes the key genetic features that are being considered for generating vaccine candidates by employing innovative technologies. It also highlights the global efforts being undertaken to deliver vaccines for COVID-19 through unprecedented international cooperation and future challenges post development.
• Click here for more
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IISER Tirupati Introduces a new course, “BIO329/629: Pandemics: Disease & Intervention”
- starting from April 24, 2020
As the world grapples with COVID-19, there is an ever-increasing need for developing a scientifically rigorous awareness course on Infectious Diseases, especially those which potentially could turn into a COVID-19 like pandemic. With biological and related expert faculty, students will get a first-hand contemporary scientific literature discussed in the course. With a focus on COVID-19, but deriving a broad analysis of related ones from history of pandemics, this course will systematically introduce the scientific topics of identification, analysis, biomarker discovery for detection and treatments with drugs and possible vaccination pathways in the context of a realistic pandemic, and integrates these with regulatory aspects of prevention / control of spread.
• Schedule of lectures
• Click here for detailed information
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First lecture series on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IISER T
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Womens day-IUPAC Breakfast
IISER Tirupati is participating in the global women networking event on the women's day.
The theme for this year is "Building bonds to create future leader". The session aims to address promote
-Strengthen your bond with someone at your location
-Reach out to another group and make a new connection
-Share your knowledge and experiences & help to build new leaders
-Keep building connections all year
Towards this, IISER Tirupati invited participants from Mahila University, SVIMS and IIT Tirupati. -
Physics Day 2020.
Physics Day-2020: A one-day symposium will be conducted at IISER Tirupati on 14th March 2020 to showcase the research fields at Department of Physics. -
An astronomy exposure camp will be held at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati from 18th to 21st February 2020. This workshop is being jointly organised by IISER Tirupati, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) – Mumbai, Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT), Public Outreach and Education Committee (POEC) of Astronomical Society of India (ASI) and Vigyan Prasar (VP) –New Delhi. The details can be found at the link: Astronomy exposure camp for teachers – 2020 Schedule for Astro Exposure Camp
List of Participants selected for Training -
38th Meeting of The Astronomical Society of India February 13 - 17, 2020
Click here for more details
organized by IISER Tirupati
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IISER Tirupati BSMS students win gold at iGEM2019!
Students from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, secured a gold medal in their maiden attempt at the worldwide synthetic biology competition conducted by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) foundation at Boston (USA).
iGEM initially started as a study course at MIT in 2003 and went on to become a summer competition. Over the years, it has grown and worked for the progress of synthetic biology, and towards developing an open community and collaboration. The five-day "Giant Jamboree" event starting from the 31st of October brought together 375 participating teams from over 45 countries around the world. The teams present the exciting results of their projects, which they had worked on during the summer, and IISER Tirupati was one of the 57 collegiate teams to win a gold medal.
The fifteen-member team from IISER Tirupati was mentored by Dr. Raju Mukherjee and Prof. B.J. Rao, along with immense support from the director, Prof. K.N. Ganesh. The team was also very generously funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, which they secured by winning the grant at the Indian Genetic Engineering Competition (iBEC 2019) early this year.
The team worked towards developing a non-invasive and affordable treatment for colon cancer. They proposed the use of a synthetically engineered probiotic, which selectively targets colon cancer cells and upon sensing the lactate present in the environment, secretes an immunomodulator called Interleukin-12, which in turns helps to kill the tumour cells. The engineered bacterium has been ambitiously named CoCa coli, which is a portmanteau of "colon cancer versus E. coli". The team members also sought the opinions of experts working in similar research areas, which helped to further their project. Another facet of the project was to interact with high school students to give them an exposure to the exciting field of synthetic biology and the potential it holds.
This was the first year of our institute's participation in the iGEM competition. Our heartiest congratulations to our debutante team for making us proud with their achievement in this extremely competitive international event.
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IISER Tirupati is hosting a one week long workshop on Modular forms and Galois representations for mathematics researchers, especially for number theorists across the country of advanced doctoral and post-doctoral level. A purpose of the workshop is to help young researchers to get started in the area. Our plan is to have three mini courses with tutorial classes as well as a few research talks. Possible topics to be covered includes special values of L-functions and reductions of Galois representations. The workshop is supported and funded by National Centre for Mathematics, which is a joint centre of IIT Bombay and TIFR Mumbai. For more details please visit https://www.atmschools.org/school/2019/NCMW/mfgr
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IISER Tirupati is hosting the 2nd National Symposium on Avian Biology to bring together researchers using birds as a study / model systems to understand various biological phenomena. This includes talks, poster presentations and bird watching opportunities in Eastern Ghats.
This will be followed by a free Certificate Course in Basic Ornithology: Research and Conservation. It will be a primer on research and conservation of birds, covering Avian Biology and Research Methods. The course is aimed at advanced undergraduates and master's students who are interested in pursuing a career in bird research or conservation. Limited seats are available for registration. Please register separately for both events.
Click here for more details -
Human activity at all levels is mediated by digital data and the need for trained scientists who can extract knowledge out of data is increasing. Also there is an increasing demand for trained data scientists or data analysts who can make strategic decisions in various domains like government sector, infrastructure management, financial markets etc
Realising the relevance of data science, IISER Tirupati, jointly with IUCAA Pune, conducted a 5-day workshop on Data Analysis and Machine Learning during May 24-28, 2019. The workshop was at an introductory level, meant to train young researchers and students in the recent techniques of data analysis including statistical analysis, nonlinear time series analysis, recurrence networks, Bayesian approaches, machine learning algorithms and deep learning methods. In addition to introductory lectures there were hands- on sessions every day and participants got trained in the use of data sets from various research areas like astrophysical data, cosmology data, experimental data, Physiological data, Climate data etc. Around 50 participants from Ph.D students, Postdoctoral Fellows and advanced under-graduates from institutes & universities in India participated in the 5-day program.
The workshop was organised by Prof. G Ambika and Dr Arunima Banerjee from IISER Tirupati and Prof Ranjeev Misra from IUCAA Pune.
Click here for Details
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Genomics workshop at IISER Tirupati - March 2019
IISER Tirupati is hosting a training event in collaboration with the IISER Bhopal, to help students and researchers analyze the genomic data they collect. This workshop is designed to enable students to use different bio-informatic pipelines for ecological and evolutionary research.
Click Here for more details -
IISER Tirupati is hosting a training event in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to help students and researchers in bioacoustics. Our industry collaborator for the event, Wildlife Acoustics Inc will demonstrate and train students in analyses of long-term acoustic data. Limited seats are available for registration.
Click Here for more details -
Physics Day-2019: A one-day symposium was conducted at IISER Tirupati on 5th Jan 2019 to showcase the research fields at Department of Physics. Prof. P. S. Anil Kumar from IISc gave lecture 'LEGO with 2D materials'. The program contained talks and poster presentations from different research groups.
Click Here for more details -
Intercity Number Theory Seminar
We are proud to announce the inaugural edition of the Intercity Number Theory Seminar, held at IISER Tirupati on 17-18 Dec, 2018.
The Intercity Number Theory Seminar is a two-day seminar, which is initiated by Mathematicians from IMSc, CMI, IIT Madras, IISER Tirupati, and IIT Tirupati, who are working in Number Theory and related areas. The Seminar will take place twice a year.
Click Here for more details -
Average duration of monsoon rains over 22 cities of India.
Indian economy is very sensitive to agronomics that is heavily depends on the monsoon rainfall. Hence a slight change in monsoon rainfall pattern affects the nation‘s GDP. Most of the regions in India receive more than 75% of their annual rainfall during the southwest monsoon season i.e., between June and September months. The knowledge of duration of this monsoon rain is very important for water management and urban planning. The major urban flooding events and their damages have been seen in Mumbai, Srinagar, Chennai, and Gujarat in recent years and in Kerala during the month of August 2018. In this regard, the average rain hours during the past three decades for 50%, 95% monsoon rainfall over different cities of India are studied using hourly rainfall dataset collected by the India Meteorological Department.
Article in Indian Express -
An Alkaloid from Scorpion Venom Comes as a Surprise
Scorpion is known for its painful sting. Relatively less known fact is that the scorpion venom, world’s most expensive liquid (~10 million USD/Litre), is enriched with many important natural products, which can fight cancer and autoimmune disorders. Recent study by Shibdas Banerjee et al. has reported a new alkaloid from the scorpion venom, while most venom components identified in past are peptidic or proteinic in nature. This news has surprised the world and recently mentioned in Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN). The study was conducted in collaboration with the laboratories of Prof. Richard N. Zare, Stanford University, and Prof. Lourival D. Possani, UNAM, Mexico. Scorpions use their venom to paralyze their prey. However, this alkaloid was not found to have insecticidal activity. The exact role of this alkaloid in the venom is still a mystery. A chemical method of synthesizing the alkaloid has also been developed. Authors suggest that this venom alkaloid might be of potential interest for evaluating its medicinal effect.
Original article: Banerjee et al. Journal of Natural Products, 2018, DOI:10.1021/acs.jnatprod.8b00527
C&EN highlight: https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/natural-products/Scorpion-venom-yields-novel-alkaloid/96/web/2018/08
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Prof. D. S. Nagaraj joins IISER Tirupati as professor and chair of Mathematics.
[Aug 2018]Prof. D. S. Nagaraj joined IISER as Professor and Chair of Mathematics. Prof. Nagaraj was working at Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Chennai. He is a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy. He is well known for his work in the areas of algebraic geometry and vector bundles. -
IISER's can host Prime Minister’s Research Fellows
The Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) scheme is for attracting students for PhD program for carrying out research in cutting-edge science and technology domains, with focus on national priorities. Now all IISER institutes are also included within this scheme. Previously, only IISc and IIT's were under the scheme. For more information, please visit the PMRF page (https://pmrf.in/). -
Prof. G. Ambika joins IISER Tirupati as a Professor of Physics with her deep knowledge and experience in the area of Non-linear Dynamics.
[July 2018] Prof G. Ambika has joined IISER Tirupati as a Professor of Physics. She has made excellent research contributions in the area of Non-linear Dynamics and an excellent teacher. She was at IISER Pune Physics Department from August 2006 till she joined IISER Tirupati. She was Dean (Graduate Studies) at IISER Pune and was primarily responsible for establishing SAM and gSAM systems of students administration, which is now being used at IISER Tirupati. She comes to us with a rich experience of students academic administration and several capacities of Institute administration. She will also take over as Chair of Physics Department with immediate effect and function as Dean (Academics) - iConChem2018
iConChem 2018 was the first International conference in Chemistry conducted by IISER Tirupati from May 24th to 26th, 2018. It brought together an outstanding and diverse group of scientists at the forefront of research in chemistry and allied disciplines with a focus on participation by younger scientists and students. Topics covered in the conference include chemical biology, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and theoretical chemistry.
- Prof. B J Rao brings enormous experience in research and administration from TIFR to IISER Tirupati joining as a Senior Professor in Biology.
Professor Basuthkar Jagadeeshwar Rao has joined IISER Tirupati as a Senior Professor in Biology with effect from April 2, 2018. Prof. Rao was a Senior Professor of Biology at TIFR Mumbai. He will be the Chair of Biology at IISER Tirupati.
Prof. Rao obtained his BSc from Nizam College and his MSc from Osmania University, Hyderabad. He then obtained PhD from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in the domain of Biochemistry. He did his post-doctoral work at Yale Medical School where he served as a research scientist for about seven years, before returning to India and joining TIFR, Mumbai. He has served TIFR in various capacities, from being a reader to Associate Professor, Professor and then Chairperson of Biology.
He leads a research group on Mechanism of Genome Dynamics and Cellular Adaptations Laboratory at TIFR. His areas of specializations are the molecular basis of genome dynamics, the computational biology of genomes and protein active sites, cellular physiology and metabolism, to which he made fundamental contributions. Apart from his fundamental research in the domain of biology, he is also interested in the dissemination of scientific knowledge and outreach activities. - MoU signed between IISER and The University of Newcastle.
On 16th February 2018, IISER Tirupati has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The University of Newcastle Australia. The MoU was signed by Prof. Kevin Hall, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation) and Prof. K. N. Ganesh, Director, IISER Tirupati.
IISER Tirupati was established in 2015. The University of Newcastle is an Australian public university established in 1965, with its main campus in Callaghan, a suburb of Newcastle. Both the institutes are committed to academic and research excellence. The collaboration between these two institutes will strengthen education and research in future. This MoU will facilitate close collaboration between researchers, and the exchange of students and researchers. It will also help to have joint research proposals and joint PhD students between faculty in the two institutes. Particularly, both the institutes have agreed upon cooperating in the design and development of advanced materials for energy and environment applications. - The Topical Conference of the Indian Society of Atomic and Molecular Physics
IISER Tirupati and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Tirupati jointly organised the Topical Conference on "Quantum Collisions and Confinement of Atomic and Molecular Species and Photons"e; during 6-8, January 2018. The Indian Society of Atomic and Molecular Physics (ISAMP) is an organization of researchers in India working in the broad field of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. It was formed in 1975 at Ahmedabad, with the purpose of bringing together the atomic physicists in India. It has grown in size and scope, from a handful to a few hundred, with a wide variety of problems being addressed in Atomic and Molecular Physics. The major problems dealt by the community involves structure and dynamics of atomic and molecular systems, the interaction of light with matter, trapping and manipulation of quantum systems, etc. The Society holds a biennial national conference alternated by a biennial topical meeting.
| Sl No | Speaker | Timings | Talk Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Welcome Remarks | 16.00 - 16.15 | |
| 2. | Dr. Jennifer Heemstra (Emory University, USA) | 16.15 - 16.45 | A chemical biology toolbox for RNA post-transcriptional modification and capture |
| 3. | Dr. Muthiah Manoharan (Alnylam Pharma, USA) | 16.45 - 17.15 | Living in the World of RNA Therapeutics |
| 4. | Dr. Pinaki Talukdar (IISER Pune, INDIA) | 17.15 - 17.45 | Stimuli-Induced Artificial Ion Transport: Novel Therapeutic Strategies to Kill Cancer Cells |
| 5. | Dr. T. Govindaraju (JNCASR, INDIA) | 17.45 - 18.15 | Alzheimer’s a Multifactorial Disease |
| 6. | Closing Remarks | 18.15 - 18.30 |
