Indira Ghosh is working in JNU since 2008 as Dean& Professor to steer the School of Computational & integrative sciences, which deals with computational approach to Biology, Chemistry, and Economics etc. She has nourished the school as Center of Excellence under Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India (GoI) in Computational Biology and spearheaded to initiate a new stream supported by UGC, called complex systems, harvesting few faculties from Physics and Econophysics. She has been one amongst the earlier scientists to realize the importance of Bioinformatics and initiated M.Sc courses in Pune University (SPPU) when she joined as Professor in Institute of Bioinformatics & Biotechnology in Pune in 2003, leaving her corporate job from AstraZeneca in Bangalore. After completion of M.Sc. in Physics from Calcutta University she received in 1982 her PhD at IISc, Bangalore under the guidance of Prof. V.S.R.Rao in Molecular Biophysics, a group lead by G.N.Ramachandran. She joined University of Houston, USA as Fulbright Scholar during 1983-1986 with Prof. J. Andrew McCammon and contributed to novel method in computational Biology. She came back as Pool officer in SINP, a DAE Institute in Kolkata, then joined & worked at CSIR lab, IICB, Kolkata for 2 years as scientist to establish the computational facilities for Biologist. She moved to industry joining AstraZeneca R&D center at Bangalore, devoted to research in tuberculosis & malaria, infectious disease, as Sr. Scientist, which she continued till her come back to academia in 2003. She has been enriched with academia and industry experiences enormously which led her to develop the skill of integration of analytical methods with all branches of science and technology. She has been contributing in part of the Biophysics which later evolved in early 90’s as Bioinformatics/ Computational Biology, one of the earliest and prime mentors in this field in the world. She published one of the first Docking algorithms in early eighties as a part of her thesis and developed difference of Free Energy calculation method in Biomolecules during her post-doc. Her major contributions are to develop and contribute in the field of Bio & Chemoinformatics, using Systems Biology approach to find pathway & target enzymes and developing novel tools for molecular simulations and pharmacophore design using known protein structure. She has participated in many projects in AstraZeneca center at Bangalore, involved in infectious disease and leads the team to find target(s) from genome of M.Tb, yielded in world patent. Her contribution in AZ in antimalarial project leads to achieve selectivity against Plasmodium falciparum vs. human, which was converted into lead molecule investigation. She has developed many programs and projects on finding Anti-Malarial compound, Chemical Data –driven anti-Tb compounds and metabolite identification and pathway integration in plants ( pfaldb.jnu.ac.in , chemtb.jnu.ac.in & http://metabolomics.jnu.ac.in/ ). She has also developed visualize and SW in the field of Bioinformatics. She has guided 12 PhD , 5 MTech & 20 M.Sc students , mentored 7 Research Associates since last 15 years (academic) to direct them towards the evolving field of Computational Biology . During 2003-2017 She has completed 12 projects supported by IBM, DBT, IUTSSF & DeITY , some of them have potential to collaborate with industry and has published 65 papers as communicating author. She has been contributing immensely in designing courses for many Indian Universities for Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, including a member of core committee for recent release of recommended Syllabus in Biotechnology by DBT, GoI (http://www.dbtindia.nic.in/wp-content/uploads/Remodelled-Biotech-Curriculum_MSc- Biotechnology.pdf ). She has contributed to course launched by UGC e-pathshala , self training modules for Computational Biology (https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/ahl.php?csrno=3 ) . During last 15 years she has been servicing as member or chair of Bioinformatics task forces in DBT, DeITy (Ministry of Communication & Information Technology) and ICMR respectively. She also started a course in 2006 in Clinical Data Management to provide skill set to doctors & biotechnologist in Pune with Public(UoP, ICMR) – Private(Bioinnovat RSP) Partnership concept. She started in 2006 a certificate examination call BINC under DBT support for providing quality education in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, which has produced more than 200 certified candidates and nearly 40 PhD, it is presently pursued by BCIL, DBT. She has participated in EU commission aided multi-country project since 2008 www.opentox.org, organizer of the Translational Bioinformatics Conferences in South Korea, Japan , China & USA , (2011-2017) http://www.snubi.org/TBC2017/ and Faculty member of research Training on Intracellular Pathogen under U.S.-India Joint Research Training Program(2011-2014) : http://www.seattle-india-gid.org/ and International Steering Committee member of QCMS (http://www.qsar.org/).
Abstract OpenTox Asia 2019
Work for a Fuller Life!
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.”-- B.Russell
Science teaches us to start with questions (Representation), find many answers preferably(Sampling) and discuss to arrive to some selective conclusions (Analysis), however these may be questioned later as new dimensions may open up due to novel experiments and theory and more to work for all. Those who select to work in scientific research are never unemployed ,every closure of problems come with a new door to open up [1-2] , think of central dogma in biology and new ideas on RNA as catalyst, idea of knowing all about gene and then genome research find the junk DNA segments influence the tissue specificity etc. Drug designing, in early eighty’s used to be medicinal & computational chemist’s job, my experience while growing with the field opened up enormous space to expand with the involvement of every topics of science including social science & ethics in a larger sense , like how to decide stem cell research belongs to which types of ethical conflict . During my learning process last 4 decades it was imperative to learn in depth computer programming, mathematics & statistics along with physics, chemistry & biology, the last one influenced me to select the title of my talk! Some of my research experience while attempting problem solving in the field of infectious disease, will be shared in context of drug designing along with highlighting excitement in drug designing yet to come.
References:
- 1. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) by Thomas Kuhn
- 2. A Pocket Popper (1987) by David Miller.