Certificate Course in Advanced Cell Biology 2014

Theme: To do or die

2 Feb to 23 March 2014, NCBS, Bangalore

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An advanced course in cell biology entitled “To Do or Die”, will take place in NCBS campus, Bangalore. Classes will be held every Sunday from 2nd Feb to 23rd March 2014, from 10am to 12:30pm.

The target audience is students currently enrolled in bachelor level courses (BS, BSc) with a strong interest in fundamental research. The minimum biology experience expected is 12th standard/ II PUC.

Classes would be led by junior researchers of NCBS (Speakers listed below), and will focus on contemporary opinions on a subset of actively pursued areas in cell biology. It is hoped that this course would inspire and ignite the spark of research interests among those considering a career in science.

The course will provide an idea about different topics in modern cell biology along with the current status of knowledge in that field. Each topic will have two components: 1) a lecture about the topic and context in which it is important; 2) a paper discussion. Students will be provided with reading material for each class. The paper discussion will be an interactive session where students would be expected to present information from a research paper. Attendance in all classes would be mandatory.

No. of Participants: 30 students. (3rd year BSc students).

<<LS2014 group photo>>

Speakers

Dr Baskar

I completed my PhD from National Center for Cell Science, Pune and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at The Ohio State University, Columbus for 3 years. I am a trained Biochemist and Molecular Biologist with specilaisation in RNA biology and Translation regulation. Currently I am studying the role of translation regulation in Long term Memory with Drosophila Olfactory System as a Model.

Dr Megha

I got my PhD at SUNY, Stony Brook, USA in Biochemistry and Structural Biology. I then moved to infectious diseases at the University of Washington, Seattle. Currently, I am working as a Wellcome Trust/ DBT India Alliance Early Career Fellow at NCBS. Using Drosophila as a model system, my work seeks to understand how neuropeptides regulate obesity and feeding.

For this course, I will be discussion how cell size is regulated – How does a cell know how big or how small it has to be? Is it controlled by genes, environment, space constraints, or nutrition, or all of the above?

Mr Parag Surana

I am doing my PhD in NCBS where I analyze structures of proteins and their interaction with DNA/RNA. Besides pondering over how proteins work, I love to think about how molecules explain life at large.

Dr Reety Arora

Dr Shambhavi Naik

'A thousand ways to die – yet how does a cell live?' I did my PhD and post-doctoral work in cancer biology at the MRC Toxicology Unit, UK. Currently I am working at NCBS as a post-doctoral researcher studying mechanisms of triggering cell death in cancer cells.

Dr Soumita Das

I am perusing my post-doctoral research in NCBS after getting PhD on ‘plant heavy metal homeostasis’ from Department of Biotechnology, University of Calcutta. My current area of interest is to study the role of epigenetic players in the expression and/or silencing of gene in plant system.

It was well accepted that nucleus is the ‘brain of a cell’ and genes act as the master controller. Interestingly, all the genes are regulated by epigenome and small RNAs – which will be focused in my discussion during the course.