Let's start this month with celebrating the many Indian women in science who ensure the space is creative, stimulating, diverse, and inspiring. In the pursuit, let's also remember to create spaces that are inclusive of this diversity - for diversity equates to richness.
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Some coronavirus strains are more prevalent in South India
We present an exhaustive analysis of over 5000 coronavirus variants in India and how they have evolved over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find some variants such as the N440K are found more in South India. We need to sequence coronavirus genomes across the country to keep an eye on how these variants as well as the ones from abroad spread in India.
Changes in Spike protein has been thought to be the main cause for COVID-19 reinfection cases, in some people. But we have worked with Apollo Hospitals to show that SARS-CoV-2 reinfection can happen even without changes to the Spike protein between episodes. This highlights the need for further research to understand the exact mechanisms of reinfections.
Gene transfer from Archaea to algae, allowing land plants to take root
Land plants have an extra problem than most other forms of life on earth. Their roots go deep into soil, and face lack of oxygen. This stress also shows up on their protein production machinery. To solve this, the latest publication from R Sankaranarayanan's group suggests that a gene for DTD-2 was transferred from Archaea to algal ancestors of land plants.
Clinical trials - not one for all populations
The latest publication from K Thangaraj's group finds 11 different variants of CYP2C9 gene among South East Asians. This gene product is important in drug metabolism. Different variants can cause differences in drug metabolism in these people.
If drug metabolism varies among different populations then it is time for us to consider conducting population-specific clinical trials for drugs.
CCMB Biologue - for discussions on emerging life science questions
In this CCMB Biologue we had Sam Illingworth discuss how poetry and games can be used to create engaging dialogues between scientists and non-scientists.
Nostalgia hits us hard every Founder's Day. It is our time to remember the vision set for CCMB by its Founding Director, PM Bhargava. We do that by meeting our alumni. This year, we had Siyaram Pandey and Shradha Goenka tell us about their time at CCMB as PhD students and their current work in academia and industry respectively. We also had Ashish Kothari, co-founder of Kalpavriksh, a non-profit organization that works towards environmental protection through grassroot interventions.
Using molecular and genomics tools to preserve wildlife
Our team met researchers studying endangered gharials, freshwater turtles and skimmers at Gharial Ecology Project. They visited the Wildlife SOS bear rescue centre that has about 120 bears and elephants.
We plan to support their studies on population monitoring and physiology of these organisms with our expertise in molecular and genomic tools. We believe such collaborations will help in breeding and conservation programs in the country.
Training - in COVID diagnostics to entrepreneurship to blue sky research
We are running a series of workshop on RT-PCR for COVID-19 testing. The participants include medical doctors, microbiologists and personnel involved in diagnostics at the Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratories.
We have been running a series of entrepreneurship development workshops with budding entrepreneurs as well as faculty members who need to identify the promising candidates.
In our webinar series with undergraduate and postgraduate teachers from government and private colleges, our scientists spoke of their research focus, and connected it with the curricula that teachers work with.
Jahnavi Joshi spoke of centipede's evolution at the International Biogeography Society's Funk Lecture Series. You can access the talk here.
Food for thought
COVID-19 might make us feel that all scientific research around us is done to find solutions to human problems. However, the reality is science is often done to address the unknown, which might or might not have a direct tangible outcome on our day-to-day lives. However, solutions for our problems emerge our of these in rather unexpected ways. Read more on this by D Kasbekar highlighting his work and its intersection to healthcare.
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