DEPARTMENTAL EVENTS

 Life Science Colloquium (Guest speaker seminar on Wednesday)

Coordinators: Dr. Ranjana Pal and Dr. Shubhra Majumder/ Dr. Ranjana Pal and Dr. Puja Ray

Speakers:

❏  Seminar by Dr. Amit Pal, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata on ‘Role of microbial proteases in pathogenesis and tumor regression’, 18 April 2018.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Ajit Bikram Datta, Bose Institute, Kolkata on ‘Protein ubiquitination’, 14 November 2018.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Smarajit Polley, Bose Institute, Kolkata on ‘Yin and Yang of IKK Signaling: Targeting Beyond the Active Site to Tame NF-kappaB’, 26 September 2018

❏  Seminar by Dr.Pralay Mitra, IIT Kharagpur on ‘Computational protein design and its application’, 29 August 2018.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Amit Pal, NICED, Kolkata, “ Role of microbial proteases in pathogenesis and tumor regression ”, 18 April, 2018

❏  Seminar by Dr. Chandrima Das, Biophysics and Structural Genomics Division, SINP, Kolkata, “ Reprogramming the Epigenomic Landscape by the Histone “Readers”: Insights on their Role as Breast Cancer Suppressors ”, 4 April 2018

❏  Seminar by Dr. Rupak Datta, Dept. of Biological Sciences, IISER Kolkata, “Pleiotropic Role of Carbonic Anhydrases in Intracellular Growth and Survival of Leishmania ", 21 March 2018

❏  Seminar by Dr. Sandip Kar, Dept. of Chemistry, IIT Bombay on “ Controlling Cellular Proliferation by Adjusting microRNA Dynamics ”, 21 February, 2018.

❏      Seminar by Dr. Chandrima Das, Biophysics and Structural Genomics Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata on “Reprogramming the Epigenomic Landscape by the Histone “Readers”: Insights on their Role as Breast Cancer Suppressors”, 4 April 2018.

❏      Seminar by Dr. Rupak Datta, Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, Kolkata on “Pleiotropic Role of Carbonic Anhydrases in Intracellular Growth and Survival of Leishmania”, 21 March 2018.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Arpita Mukhopadhyay, St. John's Research Institute (SJRI), Bengaluru,   ‘The human placenta: Driver or passenger of fetal growth restriction?’, 18 December 2019

❏  Seminar by Dr Debashis Bandyopadhyay, CSIR-Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute, Kolkata, ‘Intellectual Property Rights: Implications for Healthcare Research and Delivery’, 20 November, 2019.

❏  Seminar by Dr.Renjith Mathew, NISER, Bhubaneswar on ‘Getting in shape by driving the traffic’, 6 November 2019.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Raghunath Chatterjee, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata on ‘Cancer genomics’, 28 August 2019.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Benu Brata Das, Indian Association for Cultivation of Science, Kolkata on ‘DNA Repair and Cancer’, 18 August 2019.

❏  Seminar by Prof. Adinpunya Mitra, IIT Kharagpur on ‘Emission biology of floral volatiles- many new questions’, 27 March 2019

❏  Seminar by Dr.Soumitra Sau, Amity University, Kolkata on ‘The yeast PCNA unloader Elg1 RFC-like complex plays a role in eliciting the DNA damage checkpoint’, 13 March 2019.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Sumana Chakravarty, Principal Scientist,  Applied Biology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad on ‘Understanding molecular basis of sex difference underlying neuropsychiatric disorders using relevant animal models’, 22 January 2020.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Rupak K Bhadra, Chief Scientist, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, ‘Starvation stress, virulence and choleragenic Vibrio cholerae’, 26 February 2020.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Subhankar Roy Barman, Associate Professor, Department of Biotechnology, NIT, Durgapur on ‘MoLAEA regulates secondary metabolism in rice blast fungus’, 16 March 2022.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Pubali Dhar, Associate Professor, Department of Home Science, University of Calcutta on ‘Nutraceuticals to Nanoceuticals: Emerging Trend in Food Science’, 13 April 2022.

❏  Seminar by Prof. Sanjit Dey, Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Calcutta, on ‘Naringin, a flavanone glycoside from citrous fruits, prevents smokeless tobacco (SLT) induced menace of mitochondrial health, apoptosis in neurons and neurobehavioral pattern’, 11 May 2022.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Sharmila Bhattacharya, Senior Program Scientist, NASA, United States on ‘Effects of Spaceflight on Biological Systems’, 23 November 2022.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Saugata Hazra, Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Roorkee on ‘Design and Development of multilevel diagnostics toward identifying beta-lactamase based Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)’, 7 December 2022.

❏  Seminar by Prof. Biswadip Das, PhD, FRSB, Professor, Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Jadavpur University on ‘Killing messengers before they are born:  A novel paradigm for maintaining the fidelity and regulating gene expression in eukaryotes’, 8 February 2023.

❏  Seminar by Dr. Ritesh Ranjan Pal, Assistant Professor and DBT-Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata on ‘Membranous Nanotube: A Novel CORE-associated Conduit for Bacterial Intra- and Inter-kingdom Communications’, 15 March 2023.

Monthly Colloquium lecture series organized by Marine Ecology Laboratory

Coordinator: Dr. Sumit Mandal

Speakers:

■     Marcos André Machado Lima Teixeira, Doctoral Research Scholar, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology (CBMA) and Institute of Science and Innovation for Bio-Sustainability (IB-S), 11 November 2020.

■     Dr. Wriddhiman Ghosh, Associate Professor, Microbiology, Bose Institute, Kolkata, 16 October 2020

■     Dr. Amit Sarkar, Associate Research Scientist, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, 8 October 2020

■     Dr. Souryadeep Mukherjee, Assistant Professor, Presidency University, Kolkata, 30 September 2020

■     Dr. Tushar Kaushik, Scientist C, Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, 23 September, 2020

■     Dr. Andrew Lohrer, Principal Scientist - Marine Ecology, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand, 16 September 2020.

■     Dr. Manish Kumar, Assistant Professor, Earth Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar, 04 September 2020.

■     Dr. Samir Damare, Principal Scientist and Head, Analytical Services Division, National Institute of Oceanography, 27 August 2020.

Conferences/ Workshops/ Mini Symposium 

●   Young Investigator’ Meeting 2018, in association with India Bioscience, 5-8 March 2018.

●   Two-days Workshop on ‘Foldscope’ with Manipur School Students (Coordinator: Dr. Paramita Chaudhury Basu) (Date: 28-29 December 2018)

●   1st Regional Young Investigators’ meeting, Kolkata chapter, on ‘Together today for a better tomorrow’ in association with India Bioscience and research institutions in the Kolkata region (NIBMG, Bose Institute, Calcutta University, IICB,  IACS) (Coordinators: Dr.Piyali Mukherjee, Dr.Abhik Saha, Dr. Shubhra Majumder, Dr.Chandrama Mukherjee) (Date: 5-6 February 2019)

●   Workshop on Flow Cytometry, Bio-Rad Laboratories (Coordinator: Dr. Nabendu Biswas) (Date: 26-30 August, 2019)

●   One day Workshop on ‘Crafting Your Career’ in association with India Bioscience at PC Mahalanobis Auditorium, Presidency University. (Coordinators: Dr. Piyali Mukherjee and Dr.Chandrama Mukherjee (PU); Dr.Smita Jain (India Bioscience) (Date: 20 September 2019)

●   One day workshop and hands-on training on ‘Foldscope Microscopy’ at the School of Biotechnology, Presidency University, Rajarhat Campus. (Coordinator: Dr. Avishek Banik (PU)) (Date: 11 November 2019)

●   A mini symposium on ‘Nutrition & Chronic Disease’ was organized in association with the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, Wayne State University, USA. (Coordinators: Dr.Abhik Saha and Dr. Shubhra Majumder (PU), Dr. Pramod Khosla (WSU)) (Date: 4 December 2019)

●   Two-days Webinar on ‘Aquatic Ecosystem: Prospect and future challenges’ organized by Marine Ecology Laboratory. (Coordinator: Dr. Sumit Mandal) (Date: 18-19 July 2020)

●   The National Service Scheme (NSS), Presidency University, Kolkata, India in collaboration with Multitrophic Interaction and Biocontrol Research Laboratory (MIBRL), Department of Life Sciences, Presidency University, Kolkata organised webinar on: 'Covid19 pandemic: Today and tomorrow'. (Coordinator: Dr. Puja Ray). (Date: 30 September 2020)

●   Marine Ecology Laboratory, Department of Life Sciences Presidency University, Kolkata in association with Aquaphile on the occasion of World Ocean Day presented AQUAMANIA'22 (Date: 8 June 2022)

●   Online International Conference on ‘Biomolecules to Biome’. (Coordinators: Dr. Ranjana Pal and Dr. Puja Ray) (Date: 24-25th August 2022)

●   One day SERB-SSR program on visit of college students to Department of Life Sciences, Presidency University (Participating college: Sammilani Mahavidyalay, Baghajatin, Kolkata) (Coordinator: Dr. Susmita Mondal) (Date: 28 September 2022)

Linkages with institutions/industries for internship, on-the-job training, project work, sharing of research facilities:

• A three-year (2020-2023) Research group linkage programme sponsored by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany was initiated between Dr. Malay Das, Smritikana Dutta, Sukanya Chakraborty, Mridushree Basak (Department of Life Sciences, Presidency University, Kolkata) and Prof. Annette Becker, Andrea Weisert, Dominik Lotz, Katrin Ehlers, Annalena Mehl (Institut für Botanik, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany).

Title of the linkage: Evolutionary and functional characterization of important flowering genes identified from a rarely flowering Indian bamboo (Bambusa tulda).

• Dr. Paramita Chaudhuri Basu interacted with school students from Manipur and Chennai as part of a DBT Foldscope Twinning program from 31/10/2018 to 02/11/2018. She organized and conducted an on-field outreach activity in Manipur that involved active student participation. Students prepared samples, viewed, and documented them using the foldable paper microscope under her guidance.

Achievements:

• 12 students from our department qualified CSIR-NET, many of them just after passing their B.Sc. exam. More than 10 got enrolled in many prestigious Ph.D. programs worldwide in the year 2020.

• One of our faculties, Dr. Sumit Mandal has participated in the 11th Indian Expedition to the Southern Ocean by NCPOR, MoES from January 2020 to March 2020.

• 40 students from our department qualified CSIR-NET, many of them just after passing their B.Sc. exam. More than 10 got enrolled in many prestigious Ph.D. programs worldwide in the year 2019.

• It takes a great pleasure to announce that the DLS has extended a new arm in ‘School of Biotechnology (SBT)’, with a group of faculty members of DLS at the Rajarhat campus of Presidency University. This state of the art newly established campus was built with the financialhelp from the Govt.of west Bengal, who also funded for the basic infrastructure at the School of Biotechnology. The aim of SBT is to provide research and technology-centric education in various areas of biotechnology. SBT started its academic session from August, 2019, with the first batch of students pursuing M.Sc. in Biotechnology (specializing in Microbial Biotechnology and Plant Biotechnology). Also, the department has established a new animal house facility at our college street campus.

• Like previous years, several faculty members brought almost five crores of extramural grants. Many of them established collaborations with national and international research groups, and have published good quality research in various acclaimed journals like Trends in Plant Science, PLoS pathogens, International Journal of Cancer etc. One of our faculties, Dr.Sumit Mandal has been selected for 11th Indian Expedition to Southern ocean by NCPOR, MoES.

• Titir De from PG (2018-20) batch was selected for the Prestigious Khorana scholarship in 2019 to work as summer intern at the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry department at Yale University, USA.

• Palden Tamang from PG (2018-20) batch was awarded best Research Student award in Plant Genetics and Genomics Conference (January, 2020) based on his presentation of Masters dissertation work carried under supervision of Dr. M. Ganesan.

• 23 students from our PG (2017-19) batch have qualified CSIR/UGC NET examination during their M.Sc tenure. After completion of M.Sc, few of them have joined different Institutes for their Ph.D like IISER-Pune (Suneha Mukherjee), IISER-Mohali (SusovanSadhukhan), IICB-Kolkata (RajdipMisra), CDRI-Lucknow (Pooja Gupta), NIMHANS-Bangalore (Abanti Chowdhury), Darthmouth College of Medicine, New Hampshire (ShreaBural) & here at Presidency University ( Sourav Dutta).

• 18 students from our PG (2016-18) batch have qualified CSIR/UGC NET examination during their M.Sc tenure. Subhajit Sarkar was also awarded the prestigious Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (SPM) Fellowship. After completion of M.Sc, some of them have joined different Institutes/Universities in India as well as abroad for their Ph.D studies. ParichitaChakraborty (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Sudakshina Banerjee (TU Dortmund University, Germany), Somnath Ghosal (TIFR, Mumbai), Rahul Baroi (CDFC, Hyderabad), Subhajit Sarkar (IIT, Kharagpur), Banadipa Nanda (IICB-Kolkata), Jayashree Adikary & Satyabrata Majumder (Presidency University).

• From our UG batch of 2015-18, students have joined Integrade PhD program at Institutes like Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (Oyahida Khatun & Sukriti Pal), National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore (Tiasa Roy), IISER- Kolkata (Arpita Pal and Gaurab Ghosh) , IISER-Mohali (Koustav Ray), IIT-Roorkee (SohiniBarua, JashaswiBasu in M.Sc-Biotechnology), TIFR Mumbai (Anusha Singh), Hyderabad Central University (Samriddhi Gupta-M.Sc Biochemistry), JNU (Nirjhar Bhattacharya), IIT-Kharagpur & TMC (Rohit Singh, Monami Roy Choudhury, Najma Parveen, Poulami Kumar), BHU (Utsab Majumder, Sauvik Das Naskar)

• Our UG batch (2016-19) have performed brilliantly in national level examinations like JAM (All India Rank-6, 13, 35, 90), JGEEBILS. After being awarded their B.Sc degree, 18 out of 39 students have joined Presidency University for pursuing their Masters degree.  Others are pursuing their Masters/Integrated Ph.D degree at other Indian Institutes like IISc-Bangalore (Japita Ghosh, Rishav Barman), IISER-Pune (Roopsali Banerjee), IIT-Bombay (Aishi Dasgupta), IIT-Roorkee (SubhranilMisra), IIT Kharagpur and IACS (SaireetMisra, Sayantani Upadhyay, Snehasis Majumder, Mukti Mandal), Pondicherry University (DebjitMisra), Bose Institute (PanchaliSaha), Banaras Hindu University ( SwarnayanSaha, Piyali Mondal), Hyderabad Central University (Ritwik Bhandari).

• Our UG students have also qualified CSIR/UGC-NET JRF examination at their very first attempt during M.Sc first semester and scored high All India ranks like SreyashiNeogi (JRF-6, PU-M.Sc), Dwaipayan Chaudhuri (JRF-62, PU-M.Sc), SubhranilMisra (JRF-32), Sayantani Upadhyay (JRF-61), Aishi Dasgupta (JRF-72).

• Chayan Bhattacharjee, PhD Scholar of the laboratory of Dr. Aparna Mukhopadhyay was awarded a travel grant to attend HCV 2019 that was held in COEX, Seoul.

• Nirajan Ghosal, (PhD Scholar of Dr. Ranjana Pal)  was awarded Outstanding Paper Award at 4th Regional Science and Technology Congress (Southern Region), 2019 organised by Department of Science & Technology and Biotechnology, Government of West Bengal

• Smritikana Dutta (Ph. D. student of Dr. Malay Das) got the 1st prize in ‘poster presentation’ in 40th Meeting of Plant Tissue Culture Association - India (PTCA-I) & International Conference on Trends in Plant Sciences and Agro biotechnology-2019 organized by Dept of Biosciences and Bioengineering and center for Rural technology,  IIT Guwahati, India held on 14-16th Feb, 2019

• Smritikana Dutta (Ph. D. student of Dr. Malay Das) has received Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) award from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) based on interview held at CSIR complex, New Delhi in 2019.

• Mridushree Basak (a Ph. D. enrolled student working under guidance of Dr. Malay Das) had received CSIR-Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (SPM) fellowship award in 2019. 

•  Malinki Sur (PhD student of Dr. Piyali Mukherjee) was selected for the “B4 Young Scientist Program” to attend “Workshop on Bioimaging: Advanced Light Microscopy” organized by IISER Pune from May 13-25, 2019

• Samapika Nandy, Abhijit Dey and Puja Ray Best Poster Award at UGC and IQAC sponsored International Seminar on Biological Sciences in Human Welfare held at Department of Botany, R.B.C. College, Naihati on 9th July, 2018.

• Sonali Khan got selected for "Hands-on training workshop on crystallization in lipid bilayer" at ICGEB, New Delhi, 29-30th May 2018 and presented a poster.

• Anwesha Deb and Devrani Mitra. Presented poster entitled, “Designing synthetic photoreceptors: Lessons from sequence and structural constraints” at International Biological Engineering Meeting, held at JNU, New Delhi, March 26-28, 2017

• Moumita Ghosh got selected at ICAR sponsored short course entitled “Aquatic pollution and abatement” held during 6th to 15th November, 2017, in the Department of Aquatic Environment and Management, College of Fisheries, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Mangalore.

• Tanmoy Nandy got selected at ICAR sponsored short course entitled “Aquatic pollution and abatement” held during 6th to 15th November, 2017, in the Department of Aquatic Environment and Management, College of Fisheries, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Mangalore.

• Moumita Ghosh presented oral presentation entitled “Structure of Meiofaunal Assemblages from Sediments of Different Mangrove Habitats at Sundarbans” at International Conference on 5th India Biodiversity Meet - 2018. Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, March 15-17, 2018

• Writuparna Dutta. APWSS 2017 Kyoto, Student Travel Grant Award for Invited talk on paper at the 26th Asian-Pacific Weed Science Society Conference held in Kyoto, Japan (19-22 September, 2017)

• Writuparna Dutta. 2nd Prize for Best Poster Presentation at Workshop on Economic and Ecological Impacts of Invasive Alien Species held at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (21-23 February, 2018)

Sports Events:

• The Department of Life Sciences cares about overall wellness and comprehensive development of its students as well as of all the teaching and non-teaching staffs. To ensure this, the Department organizes multiple sports events like DLS Cricket Cup and DLS Football League every year. The DLS Cricket Cup 2023 was held from 01.03.2023 to 03.03.2023 at the Presi Green.

• DLS Football League 2023 – Coming Soon.