News & Events
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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 Online application form is available at: https://bit.ly/39yrHJm
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
