Reflections for the Year 2023

New year greetings!

Allow me to take a few minutes of yours to reflect on the year that is ending.

While NCBS had generous support from philanthropists in the past, this year the scale of its support has been phenomenal. We received a donation of Rs 100cr from Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies to set up a Centre for Brain and Mind in collaboration with NIMHANS. Ms Saraswathi Ganapthi donated to us (on a 99-year lease) a pristine private forest land of more than 55 acres located near Ponnampet of Coorg district in Karnataka (adjacent to the famous Nagarahole reserve forest) for ecological research. We received financial support and mentorship from Arcadia to further strengthen Archives@NCBS. The year is ending with another significant milestone: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has chosen NCBS as a lead institute to put together a multi-institutional, multi-city consortium to carry out a One-Health project.

The year 2023 is also a year of many prestigious awards for the members of NCBS. To name a few, Kalpana Chawla and Sir M. Visvesvaraya awards by the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, respectively, to Uma Ramakrishnan and Upinder Bhalla; Election of Sandeep Krishna and Shivaprasad as Fellows of Indian National Science Academy; Election of Sandeep Krishna, Mukund Thattai and Shivaprasad as Fellows of Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; Infosys Prize 2023 in Physical sciences to Mukund Thattai; Highly competitive DBT India-Wellcome Trust Alliance Fellowships to Uma Ramakrishnan, Hiyaa Ghosh and Dimple Notani (Senior category) and Sufyan Ahmed (Intermediate category);  the most prestigious Philip Leverhulme International Professorship to Satyajit Mayor; the 2023 Molecular Ecology Prize by Molecular Ecologist to Uma Ramakrishnan. In addition, many of our research scholars have received recognition and awards for their work presented during conferences.

All of the above is a reflection of the excellent stewardship of Satyajit Mayor (Jitu), who stepped down in February 2023 after serving more than 10 years. Under Jitu’s leadership, NCBS reached new heights and is now a globally recognised institute contributing to diverse areas across the entire spectrum of the S&T ecosystem.

The work of our outstanding scientific community is supported by extraordinary colleagues in the technical, engineering, administrative, and finance and accounts sections. The commitment of the staff working long hours and serving beyond the call of duty has enabled us to reach where we are today. Equally important is the contribution of our partners on campus: InStem, CCAMP and TIGS, who have made the campus more diverse, rich with their expertise and resources, vibrant and collaborative, without whose support we would not have achieved this level of excellence in all areas of biological sciences.

I am confident that we will continue to excel in all our endeavours. New programs such as Physics of Life, understanding self-organization in biological systems across scales, theoretical and experimental work on evolution, translational research on neurological, cancer, and infectious diseases, biodiversity and conservation in collaboration with forest institutes, departments and NGOs, are poised to take NCBS to further heights and help us enter “Pasteur quadrant” in a big way.

In the coming years, it is important that we also focus on making our research more interdisciplinary by providing an opportunity for all our students to integrate theoretical sciences and mathematics in their research and develop skills in computational (including AI/ML) and data science methods. While these efforts may help students to complete their PhD well within 5 years without compromising on the quality and quantum of work, the intention is also to help students diversify their career opportunities after their PhD and instill more confidence in "walking the road less travelled". 

LS Shashidhara
Centre Director