Each Saturday evening NCBS News puts out a new edition, and highlights the lead story of the week. A big part of the lead story is the accompanying graphic, which also adorns and refreshes the NCBS home page. Most of the lead story images have been the result of the graphic artistry of NCBS's own Shovamayee Maharana.

You can see all of the images in one place now by clicking here or at any time by choosing "Lead Story Graphics!" from the main Navigation bar, top right of screen.

It does not take long for anyone starting up research in a big centre to realise how much their success depends upon the expertise and dedication of their institution's general staff. A centre like NCBS is no simple enterprise, often having to function much like a city in miniature. Innumerable services must run smoothly in the background not only to facilitate basic research activities but to enable a remarkable range of ancillary amenities available on campus: housing, dining, childcare, mail, transport, banking, sports and entertainment, travel assistance, conference hosting and medical care. Given the efficiency, reliability and friendliness of the staff who make this possible at NCBS, the Director K. VijayRaghavan took great pleasure at the recent Republic Day festivities in thanking and honouring, on everyone's behalf, some of the individuals and units that have provided truly superlative efforts in the last year. "Our Admin, Technical and Service Staff are true heroes, comparable to the best anywhere in the world." says Dr VijayRaghavan, "They are the unseen force which keeps our system running well. Honouring our colleagues once a year is very important and reminds us how necessary they are for the success of our science."