Science Academies Lecture Workshop From Knowing Biology to Solving Problems

Transcription

1 Science Academies Lecture Workshop From Knowing Biology to Solving Problems held at PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, 5 th & 6 th January, 2015 Conclusion Report The Science Academies Lecture Workshop on From Knowing Biology to Solving Problems, sponsored by the Joint Science Education Panel of the three National Science Academies, viz. Indian Academy of Sciences (Bangalore), Indian National Science Academy (New Delhi) and the National Academy of Sciences, India (Allahabad), and organized by the Department of Biotechnology, PSG College of Technology (Coimbatore) was held on January 5 th and 6 th, 2015 at the College campus. It was attended by 130 participants of whom 27 came from neighbouring institutions (Kongunadu Arts and Science College and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University). It served as an eye-opener for the participants, about the current research areas focussing on solving problems using the knowledge in biology. The workshop comprised of lectures rendered by five eminent speakers. The first day began with an inaugural ceremony comprising of a prayer song, lighting of the kuthuvilaku. Prof. M. Ananthasubramanian, Head of the Department of Biotechnology, PSG College of Technology welcomed the participants to the program. Prof. R. Rudramoorthy, Principal, PSG College of Technology presided the inauguration function, and addressed the gathering signifying the importance of learning the fundamentals to become an effective engineer. Prof. V. Ramamurthy introduced the Lecture Workshop scheme of the Academies, and the significance of its contribution in terms of making prominent scientists of the country accessible to the student community. Prof. K. Dharmalingam, FASc, FNASc, Director Research, Aravind Medical Research Foundation, and the Convener of the Workshop introduced the theme and gave a broad picture of the topics which were to be covered in the program. In the first lecture session, Prof. Dharmalingam s talk revolved around how various factors like alternate splice site selection, cassette exon inclusion, intron retention and alternative poly adenylation contribute to the generation of diversity in biological systems, and how the central dogma of biology has become obsolete. He also pointed out how pervasive transcripts increase the complexity of an organism. He also introduced a new term proteoforms to the students. In his next lecture in the afternoon session, he outlined the basic approaches to proteomics and touched upon the scope of next generation proteomics and its applications in studying corneal infections. The lecture by Dr. N. Jayakumar, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore opened to us the various possibilities by which sequence analysis can be exploited to decipher complex gene networks. He elaborated on the protein structural analysis and tools. He commented on microarray data analysis for identifying differentially expressed genes and the significance of clustering analysis. He also touched upon the importance of computer programming in biology and the prospect of bioinformatics. 1

2 Dr. T. Rajkumar, Adayar Cancer Institute, Chennai gave the first lecture which focussed on two major types of cancers breast and ovarian cancer. In his this session, he quoted various genes in which polymorphism, mutations, and indels may lead to the development of these deadly cancers. He discussed the various factors such as familial influence and penetrance that are instrumental in performing the patient risk factor assessment. He also stressed the importance of complete availability of authentic patient information using examples of patient data from his laboratory. His next session was about importance of good diagnostics for cervical and gastric cancer and the requirements for successful screening programmes. He commented on the current screening methods available for gastric and cervical cancer and gave a comparative view on the pros and cons of these methods. He elaborated on the steps and dimensions involved in discovering novel biomarkers for early diagnosis of cervical and gastric cancer. Prof. K. Veluthambi, FNA, FASc, FNASc, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, in his first lecture gave a bird s eye view of what is done in plant genetic engineering and explained how inter-kingdom DNA transfer using Agrobacterium tumefaciens can be exploited to produce transgenic crops, by quoting examples from his laboratory. While he spoke about random integration of the transgene with the plant genome in his first lecture, his second lecture was focussed on targeted integration of the transgene. He described the use of positive/negative selection method based gene targeting to study functional genomics of rice. He also briefed on the difficulty that targeted gene delivery poses, owing to the rarity of the event. Prof. K. Somasundaram, FNA, FASc, FNASc, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore started his lecture by posing an interesting question on an important breakthrough in biological sciences in the last decade. He then converged to his topic that dealt with mirna and their implications in brain tumour and the applications of sirna in therapeutics. In his second lecture, Dr. Somasundaram detailed on the evolution of DNA sequencing methods, the first generation sequencing namely the Sanger s method and Maxam Gilbert method, through the next generation sequencing, to the third generation sequencing that holds advanced technologies for single cell genome sequencing. The sample results that were shared gave away to an interactive session. The topics covered in the workshop had relevance to the many courses offered in our academic program, and the specifics of the lecture content provided insights into how the topics covered in the courses were relevant to real life problems whether in cancer diagnosis or treatment options, data analyses, pathogenesis or challenges in agriculture. This offers scope for further refinement of the existing courses on offer as well as introduction of special topics such as proteome mediated biological diversity, marker free genetic engineering of crops, epigenetics of RNA interference. 2

3 PSG COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, Coimbatore Department of Biotechnology Science Academies Lecture Workshop From Knowing Biology to Solving Problems Monday, Program Schedule 9:00 9:30 am: Program Inauguration 9:30 9:50 am: Tea Break 9:50 11:15 am: Dr. K Dharmalingam, Aravind Medical Research Foundation Genome to Proteome: Origin and Expansion of Complexity 11:15 12:45 pm: Dr. T Rajkumar, Cancer Institute Next generation sequencing in hereditary cancers 12:45 1:45 pm: Lunch Break 1:45 3:00 pm: Dr. K Dharmalingam, Aravind Medical Research Foundation Proteomics and Diseases 3:00 3:15 pm: Tea Break 3:15 4:30 pm: Dr. N Jeyakumar, Bharathiar University Bioinformatics Applications for Biotechnologists Tuesday, :00 10:15 am: Dr. K Veluthambi, Madurai Kamaraj University Plant Genetic Engineering by Agrobacterium Ti Plasmid Vectors 10:15 11:30 am: Dr. T Rajkumar, Cancer Institute Developing diagnostics for early detection of cancer - our experience in cervical and gastric cancer 11:30 11:45 am: Tea Break 11:45 1:00 pm: Dr. Kumar Somasundaram, Indian Institute of Science Non-coding RNA and brain tumor development 1:00 1:45 pm: Lunch Break 1:45 3:00 pm: Dr. K Veluthambi, Madurai Kamaraj University Rice functional genomics by Gene Targeting 3:00 3:15 pm: Tea Break 3:15 4:30 pm: Dr. Kumar Somasundaram, Indian Institute of Science Past, present and future of DNA sequencing 4:30 4:45 pm: Wrap Up

4 PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore: Science Academies Lecture Workshop, Jan. 5&6,

5 PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore: Science Academies Lecture Workshop, Jan. 5&6,

6 PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore: Science Academies Lecture Workshop, Jan. 5&6,