Page 29 - CTB-1 10 May

PIONEERING A NEW FUTURE 29
protein degradation machinery
of the parasitic protist G lamblia,
stress response in thermoacidophilic crenarchaea
S acidocaldarius, studies on the proteins involved
in the pathogenesis and gene regulation of S.
aureus, understanding anti-cancer properties of Indian plant extracts, structural characterization
of dietary lectins, structural proteomics of V. cholerae, development of peptide-based synthetic transcription factors. Active research is being pursued in areas of novel genes and regulatory elements in plants, computational therapeutic molecular design, comparative genome analysis
and protein evolution, protein structure, dynamics and protein-protein interactions, development
of bioinformatics tools, understanding microbial growth, proliferation and cell-cycle regulation, understanding disease biology using systems biology approaches and fundamental understanding of diseases like cancer, diabetes, Leishmaniasis, Tuberculosis, Giardiasis or Alzheimer’s.
ACTIVITIES
The core activities of the institute are not restricted to only fundamental and applied research. In addition to training a large number of students who pursue their PhDs, the institute runs an integrated MSc-PhD program in Life Sciences and Physical Sciences in collaboration with the University of Calcutta. Each
year the Institute also trains college students from all over
the country in a summer internship programme. A unique hands-on science camp
for school children from North- east India is conducted annually at the Institute’s
Darjeeling Campus. There is also an outreach programme, the Falta experimental farm, that is, primarily dedicated to a rural biotechnology program that supports a large number of people, often from scheduled tribe communities spread across the state.
Another unique treasure of the institute is the J.C. Bose Museum and the heritage lecture hall inspired by the Royal Institute, London, and personally designed by Bose himself. The museum has been
an integral part of the institute since its foundation, serving as a platform to disseminate information about Bose’s remarkable discoveries and once, often accompanied by a live demonstration by JCB himself. English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley, who visited Bose Institute in 1926, wrote, “All the experiments in full blast – the heart beats of plants, plants being drugged and recording their symptoms automatically in a graph. The great experimenter himself was our guide.” Many of
the original instruments have become part of the present display that was re-curated around 1986. The museum houses some originals and replicas of the instruments designed and used by Bose, along with his diaries, mementos and certificates, original photographs and letters, paintings and other objects of interest. •
CENTRAL INSTRUMENT FACILITY
The central instrument facility, which includes the DST-sponsored national centre for proteomics
and genomics and a state-of-the-art 700
MHz NMR-spectrometer, is an independent unit within the institute which houses a large number of sophisticated instruments required for advanced research in biological, physical, and chemical sciences. Every year the facility receives numerous visitors, particularly student groups coming from schools and colleges.
Since its inception, the institute has preserved its unique interdisciplinary character, working in diverse cross-disciplinary areas such as high-altitude atmospheric science, biophysics, microbial ecology and plant biotechnology. Today, after a century since its
establishment, DST-sponsored
Bose Institute looks forward to being a strong part of India’s future scientific focus.
state-of-the-art 700 MHz NMR- spectrometer