National Centre for Biological Sciences

Last updated

National Centre for Biological Sciences
NCBS Bangalore Campus.JPG
Type Research institution
Established1992 (1992)
FounderObaid Siddiqi
Parent institution
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Director L. S. Shashidhara
Dean Upinder Singh Bhalla
Academic staff
36
Administrative staff
100
Location,
India

13°04′56″N77°34′35″E / 13.0822°N 77.5763°E / 13.0822; 77.5763
CampusUrban
Website www.ncbs.res.in
National Centre for Biological Sciences Logo.png

National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, Karnataka, is a research centre specialising in biological research. It is a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. [1] [2] The mandate of NCBS is basic and interdisciplinary research in the frontier areas of biology. The research interests of the faculty are in four broad areas ranging from the study of single molecules to systems biology. [3] Obaid Siddiqi FRS (7 January 1932 – 26 July 2013) was an Indian National Research Professor and the Founder-Director of NCBS. He made seminal contributions to the field of behavioural neurogenetics using the genetics and neurobiology of Drosophila. [4] [5]

Contents

Research areas

NCBS focuses on fundamental research from diverse fields of biology including biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, neurobiology, cellular organization and signalling, genetics and development, theory and modelling of biological systems, ecology and evolution etc. [6] NCBS offers PhD, Integrated PhD and M.Sc. by Research in these areas. It also offers M.Sc. in Wildlife Biology and Conservation every alternative year. [7] Till 2016, it has produced over 182 PhD holders and 65 M.Sc. degree holders in Wildlife Biology and Conservation. [8]

Centres and programs

In addition to various research labs, NCBS hosts following research centres or programs:

Bangalore bio-cluster

NCBS engages in a number of collaborative initiatives, such as Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP). [15] Together these three institutions serve as part of the Bangalore bio-cluster, bringing together fundamental research, translational studies, and technology development. [16]

Controversies and allegations

in 2020–2021, multiple allegations appeared in PubPeer, where some faculties at NCBS were alleged to be involved in data manipulation in their publications and lead to internal investigation and retraction from journal. [17] [18] [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tata Institute of Fundamental Research</span> Public research institute in Mumbai, India

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is an Indian Research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has campus in Bangalore, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), and an affiliated campus in Serilingampally near Hyderabad. TIFR conducts research primarily in the natural sciences, the biological sciences and theoretical computer science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Obaid Siddiqi</span> Indian geneticist (1932–2013)

Obaid Siddiqi FRS was an Indian National Research Professor and the Founder-Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) National Center for Biological Sciences. He made seminal contributions to the field of behavioural neurogenetics using the genetics and neurobiology of Drosophila.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K. Ullas Karanth</span>

Kota Ullas Karanth is a conservation zoologist and a leading tiger expert based in Karnataka, India. He was the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's India Programme. He is notable for pioneering the scientific use of camera traps in population density studies of large wild mammals in India. He was a Senior Conservation Scientist with the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Technical Director of the WCS Tiger Conservation Program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology</span> Life science research institute in Hyderabad, India

The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology or CCMB is an Indian fundamental life science research establishment located in Hyderabad that operates under the aegis of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. CCMB is a designated "Centre of Excellence" by the Global Molecular and Cell Biology Network, UNESCO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics</span> Research institute in Bangalore, India

The TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics is part of the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

Vidyaranyapura is situated in the northern part of Bangalore city in the state of Karnataka, India. Vidyaranyapura, along with several other extensions of the city, comes under a constituency called Byatarayanapura. It comes under the Greater Bangalore jurisdiction of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shekhar C. Mande</span> Indian biologist (born 1962)

Shekhar C. Mande is Structural and Computational Biologist. He was the Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India, and the Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology. Prior to this, he was the Director of National Centre for Cell Science, Pune.

Satyajit Mayor (born 1963) is an Indian biologist. He serves as director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Mayor is the former director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) at Bangalore, which has a focus on the study of stem cell and regenerative biology.

Yamuna Krishnan is a professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, where she has worked since August 2014. She was born to P.T. Krishnan and Mini in Parappanangadi, in the Malappuram district of Kerala, India. She was earlier a Reader in National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, India. Krishnan won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for science and technology, the highest science award in India in the year 2013 in the Chemical Science category.

Roop Mallik is an Indian biophysicist who works on nanoscale molecular motor proteins that transport material such as viruses, mitochondria, endosomes etc. inside living cells. The motors, such as kinesin and dynein generate forces of pico-newton order to carry our various cellular processes namely cell division, vesicular transport, endocytosis, molecular tethering etc. His lab is working to understand how motor proteins help in degradation and clearance of pathogens, and also how these motors work inside the liver to maintain systemic lipid homeostasis in the animal. Mallik is currently a professor at the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Veronica Filomena Rodrigues (1953–2010) was a Kenyan born Indian biologist. Veronica completed a B.A with honors in microbiology from Trinity College Dublin. After being inspired by the work of Obaid Siddiqi and his co-workers, she moved to India to pursue her Ph.D. While doing her PhD, considering her exceptional work, she was offered a permanent faculty position at TIFR. She also served as a senior professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. In 2004 she received the Senior National Woman Bioscientist Award. She died in 2010 after suffering from breast cancer for five years.

Gaiti Hasan is an Indian scientist who researches in the fields of molecular biology, genetics, neuroscience and cell signalling. Hasan is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), the apex body of Indian scientists and technologists. From 2013 onwards she has been serving as a Senior Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore.

Rohini Balakrishnan is an Indian bioacoustics expert. She is a senior Professor and Chair of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. Her research focuses on animal behavior through the lens of animal communication and bioacoustics.

Uma Ramakrishnan is an Indian molecular ecologist and professor at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore. Her research investigates population genetics and evolutionary history of mammals in the Indian subcontinent, including work to save India’s tigers. In July 2019, she was elected as a fellow to the Indian National Science Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neurobiology Research Centre</span>

The Neurobiology Research Center (NRC) is a specialized research centre in the premises of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India. The centre provides infrastructure to support translational research and development of cutting-edge technology in frontier areas of neuroscience. NRC houses fourteen research laboratories and four central facilities, including the Human Brain Museum, the only one of its kind in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. J. Rao</span> Indian biologist (born 1956)

Basuthkar Jagadeeshwar Rao is currently the Vice chancellor of University of Hyderabad, Telangana. Prior to this, he was a senior professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at IISER Tirupati before that he served at TIFR,Mumbai and the head of Mechanism of Genome Dynamics and Cellular Adaptations Laboratory, TIFR. His areas of specializations are molecular basis of genome dynamics, computational biology of genomes and protein active sites, cellular physiology and metabolism, to which he made fundamental contributions. Apart from his fundamental research in the domain of biology, he is also interested in dissemination of scientific knowledge and outreach activities.

Apurva Sarin is an Indian cell biologist and is presently Sr. Professor and Director of Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), an Autonomous Institution under Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India. Formerly, she was a professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences. Known for her studies on the Mechanisms of apoptosis in metazoan cells, Sarin also serves as the dean of research at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. An alumnus of the University of Delhi, she did her doctoral studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the post-doctoral work at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Her studies have been documented by way of a number of articles and the online article repository of the Indian Academy of Sciences has listed 44 of them. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences in 2005.

Ramanathan Sowdhamini is an Indian computational biologist, bioinformatician and a professor at the department of biochemistry, biophysics and bioinformatics of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, a TIFR research facility located in Bengaluru. Known for computational studies in the field of Protein Science, Sowdhamini is also associated with the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine as a collaborator and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences as well as the Indian National Science Academy. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences in 2007.

G.V. Shivashankar is an Indian biophysicist working in the field of Mechanobiology. His research focuses on understanding the coupling between cell mechanics and genome organization for the regulation of cell homeostasis and cell state transitions. In addition his group also developed imaging-AI based chromatin biomarkers as fingerprints for cells in health and disease. Towards this, his group employs multi-scale correlative bio-imaging methods combined with bioengineered interfaces, functional genomics, theoretical modeling, and machine learning. He currently holds a full professorship for Mechano-Genomics at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich and he also heads the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology at the Paul Scherrer Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shannon B. Olsson</span> Chemical Ecologist (born 1977)

Shannon B. Olsson is a scientist working on chemical ecology and sustainability, particularly in the context of Indian ecosystems. Olsson is the founder and Global Director of the echo network, a science with society network crossing 45 countries. She also serves through the echo network's international hub as Special Scientific Envoy to India with the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV) in close collaboration with the Innovation Centre Denmark in India. She previously served as a project leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and then a faculty member of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bangalore, India.

References

  1. "Sponsored Research | NCBS". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  2. "History | NCBS". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  3. Research Development Office - Grants for independent researchers | NCBS
  4. "Catalyst of a Culture of Creativity | NCBS news". news.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  5. "Obaid Siddiqi : Scientist". Outlook India . 6 February 2022. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  6. "NCBS Faculty" . Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  7. "Admission | Masters in Wildlife Biology & Conservation". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  8. "Alumni in 2016". National Centre for Biological Sciences. 15 November 2017. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  9. "The Simons Centre @ NCBS | Simons Centre for the Study of Living Machines". theory.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  10. "About | NCBS-Max Planck Lipid Center". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  11. "Home | CHEMICAL ECOLOGY". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  12. "Home | ADBS". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  13. "Overview | Masters in Wildlife Biology & Conservation". www.ncbs.res.in. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  14. "Archives @ NCBS".
  15. inStem – About Us
  16. "Bangalore Bio-Cluster | Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP)". Archived from the original on 1 February 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  17. Datta, Sayantan (31 July 2021). "NCBS Retraction: Ex-Student Alleges Others Involved in Research Fraud". The Wire Science. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  18. Bandyopadhyay, Siladitya; Chaudhury, Susmitnarayan; Mehta, Dolly; Ramesh, Arati (5 October 2020). "RETRACTED ARTICLE: Discovery of iron-sensing bacterial riboswitches". Nature Chemical Biology. 17 (8): 924. doi: 10.1038/s41589-020-00665-7 . PMID   33020663. S2CID   222137628. (This paper currently has an expression of concern, see doi:10.1038/s41589-020-00665-7, PMID   33020663 . If this is an intentional citation to a such a paper, please replace {{ expression of concern |...}} with {{ expression of concern |...|intentional=yes}}.)
  19. Koshy, Jacob (17 July 2021). "After recall of paper over data manipulation, NCBS storm over charges of 'harassment'". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 1 August 2021.