Molecular Biology is one of the most exciting branches of science in the 21st century. On one hand, it has significantly advanced our knowledge of how life works at the level of molecules. On the other hand, molecular biology techniques serve as the foundations of biotechnology which in turn has applications ranging from modern medicine (e.g., gene therapy and molecular medicine) to ecology and conservation biology. Therefore, most countries, including India, have been investing a good portion of their research budget into funding molecular biology-related projects. At the same time, there has been a lot of emphasis on molecular biology education at the Bachelors and Masters level.
However, there are several lacunae in our current efforts in training students in Molecular Biology Techniques.
First, molecular biology techniques are introduced only at the college level, by which time many students have already left biology or even science. Thus, these students get no exposure to these techniques in their entire education.
Second, many a times, even college/university students who are studying this subject are unable to get proper exposure to these techniques. This is because experiments in molecular biology are expensive both in terms of chemicals involved and instruments required. Thus, with large class sizes and limitations in terms of number of hours available for practicals, it often becomes difficult for the teachers to let everyone perform the practicals. As a result, at many institutions, the students only see demonstrations of the experiments, and never get to do them on their own.
Third, since this is a rapidly evolving field, sometimes even practicing researchers (i.e. PhD students, post-docs and young faculty) do not have exposure to latest technical advances in the field.
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune (IISER Pune) is a premier institute dedicated to research and teaching in the basic sciences. It was established in 2006 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. In 2012, it was declared as an Institute of National Importance by an Act of Parliament. Over the last 16 years, IISER Pune has made a mark for itself not only in terms of research and undergraduate education, but also in with respect to science.
IISER Pune has started Molecular Biology for Everyone, which comprises of three different series of molecular biology workshops:
Molecular Biology for Beginners, aimed at school students or those with no exposure to molecular biology.
Molecular Biology for Young Scientists, aimed at Bachelors and Masters students, who have some exposure to molecular biology.
Molecular Biology for Researchers, advanced workshops aimed primarily at PhD students and Post-docs. Coming soon.
Please click on the names of the workshop series to reach the corresponding websites .
The primary features of all these workshops are:
Number of participants in a given workshop will be restricted to 10-12. This ensures that every participant gets to do all the steps on their own.
The workshops will be conducted by two highly experienced instructors. That means each instructor will handle no more than 5-6 students.
Each participant gets a completion certificate.
For other features that are workshop-specific, please visit the individual websites.
Molecular biology workshops require expertise, costly chemicals and expensive machines. The expenditures incurred on these workshops are partly offset by generous CSR grants from Praj Industries Ltd and K.K. Nag Pvt. Ltd. The rest of the cost is recovered as registration fees from the participants.
For knowing about individual workshops, please visit the links above. For further queries, please contact molbio@acads.iiserpune.ac.in.