Report 2016-2017, 2016 - 2017

Nobel Laureate Randy Scheckman visited the campus during the 25th annual talks. Science and research administration, core facilities, substantial new laboratory space as well as an endowments cell had been put into place. Pawan Pahwa was made head of administration and finance. Collaboration with St. John's Medical College had been happening since 2008 in order to build extensive research laboratories, explore joint teaching programs with medical colleagues, and develop gene editing and NGS platforms. Multiple post-doctoral fellowship schemes with partner institutions around the world, including the University of Cambridge in the UK, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, Institut Curie in France, and RIKEN in Japan were initiated. Mukund Thattai was head of academic activities and Savita Ayyar was head of the RDO. TIIS (TIFR’s Integrated Information Systems), an in-house developed integrated ERP software solution for TIFR, and an uploading of GFR-19A for extramural funds on Public Financial Management System (PFMS), a web-based online software application, were implemented. NCBS received corpus donations from the Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Infosys Foundation and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. A learning session titled “IPI Thematic Session on Philanthropy for Science, Research and Innovation” was held for philanthropists. ACRC had 200 plus strains of mice, more than 12 lines of rats, 12 lines of zebrafish and Xenopus laevis. CIFF was equipped with 22 state-of-the-art high-end microscopes and 10 flow cytometers. Computing facility was equipped with three high performance clusters and one centralized data storage system. The fly facility maintained approximately 16,000 different fly strains and also generated transgenic flies. Genomics facility included both Sanger sequencing and a Next Generation Genomics Facility (NGGF). Microfluidics and microfabrication facility was equipped for Su8 photolithography and PDMS fabrication technologies. The Archives project was expanded in Oct 2016. On December 12th, 2016 the 2nd NCBS Alumni Meeting was hosted as part of the NCBS@25 celebrations. NCBS had six field stations all over India. A new wildlife field station was set up the past year on the former site of the High-Energy Gamma Ray Observatory (HEGRO) at Pachmarhi, in Madhya Pradesh. A collaborative and interdisciplinary programme in Chemical Ecology between institutions in the North Eastern Region (NER) and partners in Bangalore - NCBS, IISc and UAS - was initiated. A note talks about the retirement of Mitradas Panicker.