Skip to main content

Woman scientist nominated for Swarnajayanti fellowship?(hindu,)

Jyotirmayee Dash, associate professor at the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata has been nominated for the prestigious Swarnajayanti fellowship award instituted by the Department of Science and Technology for the year 2015-16.

She is the only woman scientist among the 11 nominated for the fellowship this year. Dr. Dash has received the award in the chemical science discipline. Dr. T. Govindaraju from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru is the other person who has been nominated in the same discipline.

Dr. Kausik Chakraborty from the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi and Dr. Dasaradhi Palakodeti from the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, NCBS, Bengaluru have been nominated in the life sciences discipline.

While Dr. Santanu Misra from IIT Kanpur is nominated in the earth and atmospheric science, and Dr. Prahladh Harsha from TIFR in the mathematical discipline, three scientists have been nominated in physical science — Dr. Goutam Sheet from IISER, Mohali, Dr. Sanjit Mitra from IUCAA, Pune, and Dr. Rajesh Ganapathy from JNCASR, Bengaluru. In engineering, Dr. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay from IIT Kharagpur and Dr. Vijay Natarajan from IISc have been nominated.

The award comprises financial support of Rs. 25,000 per month for five years. In addition to the fellowship, the nominated scientists are provided grants for equipment and other facilities.

Dr. Dash’s research group works on the synthesis of natural products, the self-assembly of nucleobases, recognition and the regulation of nucleic acids. “My group intends to synthesise small drug molecules that selectively bind to DNA secondary structures and regulate oncogene expression. The small drug molecules have the potential to be anticancer agents,” says Dr. Dash. “We also intend developing membrane channels that can deliver small drug molecules to cancer cells.”

Dr Dash received her Ph.D from IIT Kanpur. She was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship with Prof. H.U. Reissig, Freie University, Berlin; a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. J. Cossy, ESPCI, Paris and a Marie Curie fellowship with Prof. S. Balasubramanian, University of Cambridge. She then joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Kolkata as an assistant professor in 2009. She has also worked as a visiting fellow with Professor S. Mann, University of Bristol.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NGT terminates chairmen of pollution control boards in 10 states (downtoearth,)

Cracking the whip on 10 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) for ad-hoc appointments, the National Green Tribunal has ordered the termination of Chairpersons of these regulatory authorities. The concerned states are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Manipur. The order was given last week by the principal bench of the NGT, chaired by Justice Swatanter Kumar. The recent order of June 8, 2017, comes as a follow-up to an NGT judgment given in August 2016. In that judgment, the NGT had issued directions on appointments of Chairmen and Member Secretaries of the SPCBs, emphasising on crucial roles they have in pollution control and abatement. It then specified required qualifications as well as tenure of the authorities. States were required to act on the orders within three months and frame Rules for appointment [See Box: Highlights of the NGT judgment of 2016 on criteria for SPCB chairperson appointment]. Having

High dose of Vitamin C and B3 can kill colon cancer cells: study (downtoearth)

In a first, a team of researchers has found that high doses of Vitamin C and niacin or Vitamin B3 can kill cancer stem cells. A study published in Cell Biology International showed the opposing effects of low and high dose of vitamin C and vitamin B3 on colon cancer stem cells. Led by Bipasha Bose and Sudheer Shenoy, the team found that while low doses (5-25 micromolar) of Vitamin C and B3 proliferate colon cancer stem cells, high doses (100 to 1,000 micromolar) killed cancer stem cells. Such high doses of vitamins can only be achieved through intravenous injections in colon cancer patients. The third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, colon cancer can be prevented by an intake of dietary fibre and lifestyle changes. While the next step of the researchers is to delineate the mechanisms involved in such opposing effects, they also hope to establish a therapeutic dose of Vitamin C and B3 for colon cancer stem cell therapy. “If the therapeutic dose gets validated under in vivo

SC asks Centre to strike a balance on Rohingya issue (.hindu)

Supreme Court orally indicates that the government should not deport Rohingya “now” as the Centre prevails over it to not record any such views in its formal order, citing “international ramifications”. The Supreme Court on Friday came close to ordering the government not to deport the Rohingya. It finally settled on merely observing that a balance should be struck between humanitarian concern for the community and the country's national security and economic interests. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, one filed by persons within the Rohingya community, against a proposed move to deport over 40,000 Rohingya refugees. A three-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, began by orally indicating that the government should not deport Rohingya “now”, but the government prevailed on the court to not pass any formal order, citing “international ramifications”. With this, the status quo continues even though the court gave the community liberty to approach i