Co-curricular Activities
Microbiology Association of Xavier’s, Mumbai (MAXM)
The association fosters a bond between the community of undergraduate Microbiology students at St. Xavier’s college. It has been at the forefront in organizing various activities for the department and takes on a prominent role in publishing the department magazine. Among its various activities, it has organized Micro day, the Farewell for our MSc and TYBSc students, industrial visits, talks by guest speakers and fun activities for the Khandala seminar.
The Michronicle
The annual magazine of the department is published every year by the SYBSc students.
Micro Day
This is an annual event where the subject is celebrated, and different activities are organised. These activities could be debates, talks by prominent alumni or release of the Michronicle.
Khandala Seminar and Industrial Visit
The department has organised many Khandala seminars and continues to do so. The typical activities at Khandala seminar include department evaluation, internship presentation, role play, campfire with songs and fun games. Other trips over the years have been visits to industries such as SULA Wines, various food and cosmetic industries at Silvassa, Kisanveer sahakari sugar factory at Wai, Pure gold cheese factory at Mahabaleshwar, various industries at Aurangabad.
Giving back to Society
1) Water potability testing as SIP: Testing for the safety of drinking water to make sure it is free of contamination is a need for a country like ours. Students test for potability of drinking water which they undertake throughout their second year also as part of their social responsibility to test the drinking water portals in the college. All drinking water ports in the college are tested every month for total and fecal coliforms and submit a report to the administrator signed by the head of the department as well as the principal.
2) Composting:
3) CoVID-19 Awareness: #Stayingaheadof COVID-19
4) Social outreach
Seminars, Lectures and Conferences
"GREEN VOICE" an intercollegiate event was held at St. Xavier's College, Autonomous Mumbai on 21 June 2016, organized jointly by the Department of Microbiology and PG Department of Biotechnology. Novozymes South Asia Pvt Ltd, Bangalore sponsored it. The event started with a panel discussion highlighting the topic, "Role of Microbial Biotechnology in Environmental Policy".
Interactive Student Workshop was conducted and sponsored by Novozymes South Asia Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore on 1 August 2016, the topics being Sustainability and Global development (Pranjal Goswami) and Biotechnology and Innovation (Dr Aditya Basu).
OneCert Workshop: Ms Namrata Dayal trained 136 postgraduate and undergraduate students of biological sciences in Food Safety and Management Systems (FSMS) on behalf of OneCert International private limited. The training covered the roles of food safety auditors and systems like HACCP, ISO standard, FSSAI food safety regulations and schedules. The training was held in two batches from 9 December to 12 December 2019.
Guest Lectures
Mr Sachin Rajan, our alumnus, spoke on "Management as a career for Microbiologists" on MICRO day, 24 August 2016.
Department of Microbiology organized a lecture by an eminent scientist Dr Swaine Chen M.D, PhD from the National University of Singapore who gave a lecture on 'Definitive elucidation of virulence mechanisms: Lessons from Campylobacter for understanding why bacteria cause disease', held on 2 December 2016 to SYBSc, TYBSc, MSc Microbiology and Life Science students. He is the PhD guide of our alumna Dr Varnica Khetrapal who received her doctorate in December.
Dr S.T. Dheen and Dr P. Hande of Yang Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS, spoke on "PhD opportunities at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS", Singapore on 23 February 2017 to our MSc students from Biotechnology, Life-sciences and Microbiology.
The Department under the leadership of Faculty member Sangeetha Chavan initiated the task of Solid waste management in our college with a talk on "Solid Waste Management in Mumbai" by Ms Sindhu Iyer of Stree Mukti Sanghatana on 8 March 2017 in the SCAVI. Our MSc students attended the talk.
Career Guidance Seminars
A seminar was held on 28 April 2017 for BSc and MSc students. Three speakers were invited. Gillian D'Souza for Science writing in India, Mrs Asha Sridhar – Careers in the Food Industry, and Mrs Yogita Narwekar – Entrepreneurship. It was attended by 41 students who obtained information about careers in each of these fields. The talks were very inspiring and informative.
A Career Guidance Seminar 2018 was held on 21 April 2018. Guest speakers invited were alumna, Ms Harsha Kavale, Associate Director, Cipla, Dr Shilpa Verekar, Head – Technical Projects (PAN India), Microchem Silliker Pvt Ltd, and alumnus Mr Mahesh Jagtap, Mumbai. Sales Head-India at PQE Group, Pharma Quality Europe, Italy.
