Report 2015-16, 2015 - 2016

A note by the director, Satyajit Mayor, talks about the Silver Jubilee celebrations held from 11 - 14th of January. An exhibition on the history of NCBS was also conducted by the Archives@NCBS project. A museum facility and collections facility were in the process of being created as part of the public outreach programme. A series of events and seminars were conducted through the year (https://www.ncbs.res.in/events). The 'Bengaluru Life Sciences Cluster', a cumulation of individual laboratories for biological research, was begun. A Big Data and Cryo EM facility were underway through this initiative. Endowment funds for the Institution were sought (Rs 25 crore for 25 years). The first Post Doc Symposium was held by the Postdoctoral Fellows Association in November hosting postdocs across India. The M.Sc. Wildlife programme began a series of workshops for students across the country. Several collaborations were done with Trinity College, Dublin. A longterm field research station was established at Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh in collaboration IISER, Pune. A CNC Vertical Milling machine was added to the mechanical workshops. The communications office team created social media channels for NCBS and InStem including the chemical ecology program, Simons Centre for Living Machines and accelerator program. A new program, 'Accelerating the application of stem cell technology in human disease', was started supported by the Department of Biotechnology and Pratiksha Trust. A theatre production, 'The Vaidya's Oath', was conducted as part of the Science and Society programme. The Simons Centre had five research groups addressing complex biological problems. Twenty-four facilities were to manage their own allocated budget. The slim report of the previous years was replaced by the usual dark-covered report.