Latest news from our group at IIT-D

"Vanity, definitely my favorite sin"  

(John Milton played by Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate)

• Academic/Administrative Responsibility: Honored to serve as the sole representative of IIT Delhi (on behalf of Director) at IIT2024 Global Conference, Jan 12-14, Washington, D.C., USA.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Firdos on completion of her doctoral work. Our best wishes are with her.

• Back to Administrative Responsibilities: Appointed as Dean, Student Affairs IIT Delhi from 1 Sept. 2022 to 31st Aug. 2024.

• Academic/Administrative Responsibility: Appointed as Chair of Core Committee Curriculum Review and New Curriculum Implementation (CCRNCI) from March - December 2022 (Delivered first draft of the Concept Paper prepared by the CCRNCI by September 2022, followed by collection of inputs from all academic units + students at IIT Delhi).

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Rachita Sharma on completion of her Masters (M. S.) research work. Our best wishes are with her.

• "Washout", disruption, forced-hiatus, pandemic: Covid-19 pandemic situation in India has almost shut down research operations in the group. Our research program has suffered extensive financial losses amounting to ~INR 2500000 (~USD 35000) due to expiry of bio-chemicals, death of cell lines, break-downs resulting from non-maintenance and non-availability of servicing personnel etc. These financial losses appear negligible compared to the loss of time and spirit for everyone in the group - nobody has been spared from close encounters with serious morbidity and mortality in their respective circles due to the pandemic. We will all need to find substantial strength to pick ourselves up and almost start afresh in pursuing our research interests whenever we can come back to our lab. Coming to terms with the personal losses (relatives, friends, neighbors) will be a challenge for everyone - overcoming this challenge will need time especially for rebuilding our concentration/focus towards our research activities within the limitations of discontinuities presented by the situation.

• Farwell: We bid farewll to Dr. Prachi Verma. Our best wishes are with her.  

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Anand Changani on completion of his Masters (M. S.) research work. Our best wishes are with him.

• Welcome: We welcomed Dr. Prachi Verma, a new post-doctoral fellow in our group.

• Administrative Relief: Taking a sigh of relief in the first major-Institute-level-administrative-responsibility-free year in the last 15 years. Hope life continues the same way!

• Administrative Responsibilities: Given the responsibility of Chairperson, JEE (Advanced) - 2018 at IIT Delhi, the year was completely packed with co-organizing, along with IIT Kanpur, the first computer-based undergraduate entrance examination for admission into all (23) IITs.

• Top views: Delivered Introduction to Biology a top-viewed lecture on YouTube^IN in 2018 amongst all IIT PAL lectures (for Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics). The lecture can be viewed here (click HERE). Also worth viewing may be the first lecture in the series - Why IIT PAL in Biology?

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Upasna Agarwal on completion of her doctoral work. Our best wishes are with her.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Chanchal Acharya on completion of her doctoral work. Our best wishes are with her.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Snigdha Singh on completion of her doctoral work. Our best wishes are with her.

• Biography: Foundation For Innovation And Technology Transfer (FITT), IIT Delhi printed a biography of yours truly in the July 2016 issue of its publication FITT Forum (click HERE to download .pdf file of the biography). Vanity is definitely my favorite sin!

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Suneyna Bansal on completion of her doctoral work. Our best wishes are with her.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Avinash Mishra on completion of his doctoral work. Our best wishes are with him.

• Publication: Snigdha Singh's work got accepted in Scientific Reports. Hope this will further energize and motivate her (and others) towards working harder in our ongoing scientific explorations!

• Presentation: Snigdha Singh presented her work titled "Transmembrane Domains of Viral Proteins Show Signatures of Entry and Exit Mechanisms" in MCB75: from Molecules to Organisms, organized by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India from December 11-14.

• Publication: Suneyna Bansal's work got accepted in the Molecular Biology of the Cell. Hope this will further energize and motivate her (and others) in our ongoing scientific endeavors!

• Award: I received the "Teaching Excellence Award" at IIT Delhi from our Director on 27th January (Foundation day of IIT Delhi).

• Award: Suneyna Bansal was a proud recipient of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) International Travel Award (USD 1500) for presenting her work titled "On the symbiotic origins of eukaryotic plasma membranes" at the 2014 ASCB/IFCB Meeting in Philadelphia, PA, USA, from December 6-10, 2014.

• Against all odds (with due credit to Phil Collins): Overcoming some serious personal challenges in the last 4 years, Suneyna Bansal finally managed to get her first paper acceptance in the Journal of Membrane Biology (Springer). Hope this will energize and motivate her (and others) in our ongoing scientific endeavors!

• Award: Group alumnus Dr. Mohit Naresh received an "Appreciation Award" from his employers Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Hyderabad, India. Keep up the good work Mohit!

• On the definition of life: My article titled "Self-generated and reproducible dynamics in gene years represent life" appeared in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Mohit who completed his excellent doctoral work. Our best wishes are with him.

• Chairing with THE Chair: I was honored to Chair the second-half of the first session on protein folding during Albany 2011: Conversation 17, with the legendary Ken Dill (author of the really fantastic textbook "Molecular Driving Forces") and our own living legend B. Jayaram as the speakers. What gave me an additional kick was the Chairing of the first-half of my session by Bengt Norden (Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry 2001-2004), who was a last minute replacement for Harold Scheraga.

• Another Cover Article: Following up on my collaboration with B. Jayaram, we managed another cover article in the February issue of the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. This becomes the fourth cover article from my work - while the scientific endeavors are thoroughly enjoyable, I certainly have no problems in looking at beautiful pictures of my work on covers of reputed journals.

• Protein folding - Controversy and 15 minutes of fame: My collaborative work with B. Jayaram featured on the cover of  October 2010 issue of the Journal of Biomolecular Structure & Dynamics became quite controversial, leading to an editorial write-up and 29 commentaries in the February issue of the same journal. It has already been cited pretty well (not necessarily for folks agreeing with our interpretations of the findings, but the work is standing the test of thorough scrutiny, and time, so far).

• Cover Article: My work, in collaboration with B. Jayaram at IIT Delhi,  titled "A stoichiometry driven universal spatial organization of backbones of folded proteins: Are there Chargaff s rules for protein folding?", appeared as a cover article in the October issue of the Journal of Biomolecular Structure & Dynamics.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Vrinda who completed her excellent M. Sc. work.  We also bid farewell to Roohi Gupta for completing her excellent doctoral work. Our best wishes are with them.

• Cover Article: The work of Mohit Naresh, titled "Synthesis of cellular organelles containing nano-magnets stunts growth of magnetotactic bacteria", appeared as a cover article in the July issue of the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The cover picture has a "magnetic mermaid" and a "mark of zorro" both created by magnetotactic bacteria.

• Presentation: Mohit Naresh presented a paper titled "Biological synthesis and characterization of cubo-octahedral nanomagnets" at ICMAT2009, International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies held in Singapore from June 28 - July 3. Other authors of the paper are Manish Sharma and myself.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to Preeti who completed her excellent M. Tech. work. Our best wishes are with her.

• Synopsis: Roohi Gupta submitted her synopsis in February.

• BOSS Award: Graduating group member Vivek Hasija received the BOSS (Batch Of Seventy Seven) award for best experimental M. Tech. work in the Dept. of Biochemical Engineering and Biotech., IIT Delhi.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to two group members who completed their excellent M. Tech. work and are ready to move forward in their life. Our best wishes are with them.

• Nature's call: A paper from our research group was highlighted in the latest research section (March 2008) of Nature India. (pdf of the Research Highlight)

• Presentation: Roohi Gupta was chosen to present her work on intracellular uptake of biodegradable nanoparticles (from our department) at IIT-Delhi for the Science Day.

• BOSS Award: Graduating group member Megha Sharma received the BOSS (Batch Of Seventy Seven) award for best experimental M. Tech. work in the Dept. of Biochemical Engineering and Biotech., IIT Delhi.

• Farewell: We bid farewell to four group members who completed their excellent M. Tech. work and are ready to move forward in their life. Our best wishes are with them.

• Cover Article: My work, in collaboration with Beni Podbilewicz (Technion, Israel),  titled "Genetic control of fusion pore expansion in the epidermis of Caenorhabditis elegans", appeared as a cover article in Molecular Biology of the Cell.

• Presentation: Roohi Gupta presented a paper titled "Cellular Uptake of Biodegradable Nanoparticles by HeLa Cells" in the symposium Advanced Biomaterials at ICMAT2007, the 4th International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies held in Singapore from July 1-6. Other authors of the paper are Prashant Mishra and myself.

• Asia21 Young Leader: I served as an invited delegate in the Asia Society s Asia 21 Young Leaders Summit, held from November 17-19, 2006 at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, South Korea. This two-day forum brought together 200 emerging leaders from multiple sectors from across the Asia Pacific region and the United States, all under the age of 40. For more details, go to the Asia Society (NY, USA) webpage (link provided in Aditya's Home).

• Presentation: Vibhuti Gupta presented a paper titled "Preparation and Characterization of Liposomes from Bacterial Lipids" at Chemcon 2006, the annual conference of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, held in Bharuch, Gujarat. Other authors of the paper were Vijeta Jangra (NIT, Jalandhar) and myself.

• Presentation: Sucheta Arora presented a paper titled "Correlating single cell motility with population growth dynamics for flagellated bacteria" at Chemcon 2006, the annual conference of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, held in Bharuch, Gujarat. Other authors of the paper were Vidya Bhat and myself.

• In the News: Coverage by Chemical & Engineering News on the status of Indian science. A pdf compilation of the coverage is also attached.