The cause of a disease often affects its treatment plan. The need to fill this gap in our understanding of disease biology is further exaggerated in the case of ‘rare’ diseases.

Prof. Satyajit Mayor, Director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR) was conferred the distinguished Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite (National Order of Merit), by the Ambassador of France to India, Mr. H.E. Emmanuel Lenain on 19th November, 2019.

Bats are reservoirs of many microorganisms responsible for infectious diseases. One such is a type of virus called filovirus, which causes severe haemorrhagic fever in humans and primates.

A new study has found that there may be virus spillover – tr ..
 

A new study conducted by the Bengaluru-based National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS) along with two other health institutions has found that the transmission of virus from one species to another may be occurring between bats and humans.

According to the World Health Organization, cervical cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer affecting women worldwide. Currently, early screenings of pre-cancerous tissues and vaccination have proven to be the most effective treatment strategies. However, the lack of such interventions in developing nations has led to its high occurrence. Among the South East Asian nations alone, India has the highest incidence rate of cervical cancer.

To break this language barrier in teaching science and technology, a small but growing number of initiatives have started platforms that discuss concepts in local languages. They want to make concepts in these subjects more accessible to those who do not know English. And technology, whether it is WhatsApp, YouTube or podcasts, makes it easy to disseminate information to a wider audience.
 

“When I was a student, Late Prof. K. S. Krishnan who was on the interview panel asked me, ‘how do flies land on the ceiling?’ Although seemingly an innocuous question, it turns out to be a really complex phenomenon,” says Prof Sanjay Sane from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru. Now, after several years of research using the modern state of the art tools and months of video recordings his team has answered the question.

Scientists have recently discovered the mechanism by which a minuscule change in 3 atoms in a protein molecule can affect immune signaling in cells. This ‘butterfly effect’ is used by the bacterium, Shigella flexneri, to survive within the host cells that it infects. Ranabir Das’ team at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, has found that a tiny change in the protein UBC13, caused by a bacterial enzyme, creates a cascade of small atomic alterations that add up until they prevent UBC13 from binding to a partner protein, TRAF6.

Dr Anjana Badrinarayanan has been selected for the Har Gobind Khorana-Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award 2019.

The Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award (IYBA), initiated in 2005, is a career-oriented award to identify and nurture outstanding young scientists with innovative ideas and desirous of pursuing research in frontier areas of biotechnology.