Scientists have been using genetics to study wild animals for several years now. However, a new genetic method developed by a team, including scientists from Bengaluru’s National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), hopes to make studying as well as conserving wild species quicker, easier and cost-effective by deriving information from animal sources containing extremely low-quality DNA — including faeces and cooked meat.

Now, researchers at Stanford and the National Centre for Biological Sciences at India’s Tata Institute of Fundamental Research have developed a method for extracting genetic clues quickly and cheaply from degraded and left-behind materials, such as feces, skin or saliva, and from food products suspected of containing endangered animals.

Dr Arati Ramesh, from the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Bioinformatics at the National Centre for Biological Sciences has been awarded a 2018 Young Investigator Research Grant from the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP).

Why collaborate?

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.”
 – Louis Pasteur

"La science ne connaît pas de pays, parce que la connaissance appartient à l'humanité, et elle est la torche qui illumine le monde”
– Louis Pasteur

Organophosphate pesticides bring about the inhibition of important enzymes (AChE) of the body, which can, in turn, affect the functioning of nervous system, heart, immunity, and even the reproductive system.

Explains Ketan Thorat, a doctoral scholar at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), Bengaluru, “The base of the gel is chitosan, a natural substance extracted from the waste shells of crabs and shrimps, to which we added a nucleophile and few aqua reagents to get the consistency and desired pH.”

Jayashree Ratnam, associate director of the wildlife biology and conservation programme at the National Centre for Biological Science, said that these forests are mesic savannas. “Having worked for a while in African savannas and being very familiar with the idea that mixed tree-grass ecosystems were distinctive from forests, when we returned to India and started visiting various field sites, we were struck by the similarities of these sites with African savannas,” she said.

A species is identified based on the type specimen that describes the characteristics of that species. So to zero in on the right names to apply to the species, scientists have to extensively study historical specimens and Indian and international museums, he said.

To this end, Ascher co-organised the second Bangalore Meeting on Asian Bees, on March 1 and 2, along with V.V. Belavadi, Hemalatha Somanathan and Axel Brockmann.