Ncbs is pleased to welcome Radhika Venkatesan as faculty.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been renewed between the institutes on our campus and The University of Würzburg on the 27^th of November 2014, to reinforce their active programme of scientific collaboration.

The International Meeting on Neuromodulation of Behaviour will commence at Bangalore's National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) on 29^th October 2014. The two-day conference aims to bring together neuroscientists studying neuromodulatory inputs and how they influence natural behavior in organisms.

Biologists at NCBS, Bangalore have identified stem-cell like myogenic progenitors giving rise to adult flight muscles and delineated the mechanism of regulation of proliferation of these cells via the neighbouring epidermal cells. This work by Rajesh Gunage, from the laboratory of K. VijayRaghavan, is a promising step towards building an understanding of muscle biology in the context of muscle regeneration.

Better and more efficient laboratory techniques are a dream come true for any scientist. That dream could materialize for stem cell biologists thanks to a new finding by NCBS's Mitradas Panicker and his team that makes one of the most important steps in stem cell research - that of identifying human pluripotent stem cells (cells that can differentiate into any kind of adult cell) - easier. The scientists show that a blue fluorescence is emitted by fat-storing organelles or lipid bodies in specific types of pluripotent stem cells. They utilized this to distinguish these stem cells from others more easily and efficiently. The new technique is also a cost-effective and less labor-intensive alternative for scientists who need to culture stem cell colonies for research experiments. Scientists are hopeful that delving deeper into the principles of this technique could throw more light on pluripotent states and the process of pluripotency itself, a significant step towards understanding stem cells better.