jan to june 2011 news letter ppisr

7/31/2019 Jan to June 2011 News Letter PPISR

1/8

I t is with great pleasure I present the second issue of our News Let ter highligh t ing th e

variou s academic and research activit i es of the Institute. Currently, in PPISR, there arethree divisions, Theoretical Sciences, Materials Science and Biological Sciences whereresearch progra mm es of adva nced natu re are in progress. The research laboratori es arenow w ell equipped w ith the state of the art instrum ents to give every advantage to thestudents and faculty pursuing research h ere. In ad dit ion to pursuing research, PPISRhas ambit ious plans to outreach act iv it ies to develop innovat ive and imaginat iveplat form for pedagogy aimed at school and college students and teachers. Themission of PPISR is to carry world class quali ty research in volving m ult idiscipl inarycollaborat ions nat ionally and internat ionally and thus help graduate students reachtheir ful l potent ia l by providing research guid ance and technical ski l ls required to l iveand work in a complex technological society. PPISR also aims to develop teachingmaterial for core courses in Physics, Chemistry an d Biol ogy in order to st rengthen th e

basic foundat ions of science in doctoral students. Our Inst i tute ha d organi zed eventsl ike Nat i onal Workshop in Biological Sciences, Summ er Schools in Biolog y, Chemistry

and Physics for Poornaprajna College students of Udupi.Seminars and invited lectures on various topics delivered by ourfaculty members have provided signif icant exchange ofscientif ic knowledge among researchers across the country.The visits of Nat ional and Internat ional Scient ists are result ingin new avenues of col laborat ions with lead ing globa l Inst i tutes.Let me express my heart felt thanks to al l those who havecontr ibuted their mite in b r inging ou t of this News Let ter.

(1928 - 2009)

His Holiness

Founder Chairman

Sri Vibudhesha Theertha Swamiji

His Holiness

Chairman

Sri Vishwapriya Theertha Swamiji

Dr. Anand B HalgeriDirector

To promote and nurture excellence in the fundamental

and applied sciences for the advancement of scientific

knowledge and the benefit of mankind

NEWSLETTER

From the Director's Desk

Volume II JANUARY to JUNE, 2011 Issue 001

POORNAPRAJNA

Institute of Scientific Research

VISION

On the occasion of this second issue of the Newsletter, we are able t

reflect with pleasure on a number of points in which, over the past yea

since the PhD program was begun, the institute has approached eve

more the vision that motivated our founder HH Vibhudesha Teerth

Swamiji to create the institute. Topmost among this is no doubt the vigo

with which the twelve students who have been inducted into our PhD

program have plunged into their work enthusiastically, some of whos

achievements are recorded in this issue. Further, the academic yea

began with a workshop on advances in biological sciences, whic

helped bring together college lecturers and researchers from variou

places, on a single platform. We also have two new faculty

appointments in Materials and Biological Sciences. Two summe

schools, covering over 20 B.Sc students from our sister institute o

Poornaprajna Science College, Udupi, were conducted, and-- as I am

glad to report-- quite well received. It provided us with a nice window o

opportunity to interact with the student community and share ou

interests as researchers. Based on the response evoked, we ar

sanguine that at least some of them would consider pursuing researc

as a career. We greatly profited from the visits from a number of eminen

academic personalities, industrialists and other well-wishers, whos

thoughtful suggestions have proved to be valuable to a fledgling

research institute as ours. Many visitors have found our institute, sma

though it is, unique in its origin, structure and style of work. Many hav

appreciated the idea that an institute such as ours with a religio-spiritua

base, is involved in secular, scientific research, since this bas

potentially provides the discipline and freedom of thought essential to d

research in the sciences.Dr. R. Srikanth

Editorial:

Dear all,


2/8

Page 2

Events at Bidalur Campus

National Workshop on Advances in Biological Sciences

A National workshop on Advances in Biological Sciences

was conducted under the aegis of Indian Academy ofSciences, Bengaluru and Poornaprajna Institute of

Scientific Research (PPISR) from January 20-22, 2011.Prof. A J Rao, IISc, Bengaluru was the convener and

Prof. A B Halgeri was the coordinator. The scope of theworkshop covered recent advances in cutting edge topics

of Biological sciences. The objective of this workshop was

to bring together scientists, teachers and youngresearchers in the same platform. The Workshop was

inaugurated by Prof. G. Padmanaban, IISc and Prof. MRS

Rao, President, JNCASR. Eminenprofessors from IISc and otheprestigious institutions presented

lectures on topics like ProteomicsBiomarkers in cancer research

Recombinant proteins, Stem Cells

Endophytic fungi, Vaccines, Geneticcontrol of mosquitoes, Population control

Protein Structureetc.,

Foundation Stone Laid for the Biological Facility

Foundation stone for Biological acility was laid by H H SriVishwapriya Theertha Swamiji on January 28 , 2011.Biological/Insect facility is one of the important amenities neededfor the advanced research in Biological Sciences to test theresearch findings before entering to clinical trials. While layingthe foundation stone Swamiji blessed the gathering and said thatfounder Chairman's dream would come true by adding facilitiesto the existing ones and he also wished that this project befinished before Founder's day celebration. Dr. K Srihari, Hon.Secretary and Prof. N J Shetty, Hon. Professor of BiologicalSciences and all staff, faculty and students of PPISR were

present on the occasion.

Fth

Visit of Prof. Seetharama Acharya from USA

Professor Seetharama A Acharya from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York, USAvisited PPISR on February 15, 2011 with an aim of collaboration on PEGylation Technology. PPISR arrangeda meeting with him and his USA and Indian associates to discuss about the implementation oPEGylation technology at PPISR. Dr. Ananda presented overview of the institution and his areas of research

Continued...


3/8

Page

on PEGylation and enquired his views how to initiate collaboration with PrAcharya. Prof. Acharya in hpresentation on EAF PEGylatiTechnology mentioned about his goold association with the members

PPISR management and wished to hethis institute by doing research PEGylation technology. His enthusiasapproach in establishing a technolo

centre at PPISR materialized in offering him Distinguished Visiting Professorship in biological Sciences of PPISHe accepted this offer and agreed for initiating his research activities at PPISR.

Board of Trustees Meeting

The Board of Trustees meeting was held at Bidalur campus nd

March 02 , 2011 to discuss about the important issues regarding tamendments to the Trust Deed, Budget requirements of PPISrecruitment of new facultiesetc., in the presence of theChairman. The meeting alsohad invitees such as Dr. V VBhat, from ISRO Mr. Haridas,Statutory Auditor, Mr. AshokKumar, Hon. Treasurer ofAMEC and the Director ofPPISR, The meeting wasmainly focused on the

sources to increase the corpus fund.

On this occasion, His Holiness Sri Vishwapriya Theertha SwamijiChairman of AMEF released the first newsletter of PPISR .

Visit by Manipal University Team

A team from Manipal University, Manipal headed by Dr. Chandrashekhth

Adiga visited PPISR on March 12 , 2011 for the renewal of the recognitionPPISR as a research centre for Theoretical Science, Material Science aBiological Science. One expert from each branch visited the center averified the facilities. Along with Dr. Adiga, Prof. Thimmappa and Prof. Moh

Rao from Manipal University visitedPPISR labs as subject experts. Expertcommittee visited different lab facilitiesand later Director presented aboutPPISR facilities and activities; in turn Dr.Adiga presented about Manipal

University its Rules and Regulations, guidelines for registering and awardingPhD degree etc. Most of the honorary professors, adjunct professors, allmembers of PPISR and AMEF members were present in this meeting anddiscussed about the PhD centre recognition and guide recognitions.


4/8

Page 4

GTC Project Meeting

An industrial project sponsored by GTC technology, USA was initiated inMaterial Science department in Feb 2011. This project is based on the designand development of novel, eco-friendly solid catalyst for TM technology. Fo

this project, a fully automated micro-reactor catalyst testing unit was procuredand installed at the institute during first week of April. After 5 months of researchwork, the concerned scientists from GTC,USA, Sd-Chemie, Germany and SCILvisited PPISR from 22-25, June 2011, forthe first face to face meeting to review theproject. Dr. ZhongYi (GTC), Dr. Khler, Dr.Olivier (Sd-Chemie, Germany), Dr. Sabde

(SCIL) and Dr. Prasad Rao (consultant to GTC) attended the 4 days meetingalong with Dr. Halgeri and Dr. Shanbhag from PPISR. In addition to the researchwork, the matters related to filing patent and FTO were also discussed. Themembers in the meeting expressed their full satisfaction over the progress made

during last 5 months.

Summer School for BSc Students

Summer School (SS) for College students was conducted as an outreach activity for the first time in PPISRwith an intention to inspire young minds to pursue research in basic sciences. It was decided to make abeginning in this activity, with some students from our sister institute, Poorna Prajna College Udupi. Therewere two batches of students one from Physics, Maths and chemistry background and another withBotany, Zoology and Chemistry background.

Chemistry and Physics Held from May 29 to June 2 , 2011. Prof. A. P. Bhat,

HOD of Physics department and Lecturer Ms. Suparna from Department ofchemistry accompanied students. Prof. Mahendra, the Chairman, Dept ofChemistry, Bangalore UniversityInaugurated the Summer School. He gave a briefidea of the future prospects in academics and encouraged the students to take up acareer in science. The physics-chemistry school consisted of various lectures given

by PPISR faculty and doctoral students. In thephysics schools some of the topics discussed ranged from quantum computationquantum entanglement to astronomy to mesoscopic physics at the nanoscaleSome of the specific topics in the chemistry school were Introduction to Materialsscience, nanomaterials, catalysis, proton exchange membranes, polymericmembrane for separation application, Bio-mass etc. followed by physics practicasessions and also a visit to the Laboratories at RRI under the guidance of DrSrikanth. The chemistry laboratory practical sessions consisted of hands-onsynthesis and characterization of various materials using the PPISR in-house

instruments and also a demonstration of the Catalytic reactor. The Valedictoryfunction was held on 2nd June. The Chief Guest, Dr. Anatharaju, Secretary, VisionGroup of Science and Technology, Government of Karnataka gave an inspirationalspeech about Chemistry and Philosophy.

th thChemistry and Biology Held from June 5 to 9 2011 and inaugurated by Prof.S V Hegde of UAS Bangalore. Some of the Biology lectures topics were Endophyticfungi from medicinal plants, Insulin pathways and control of disease, Pro biotic in

th nd

GTC Project Meeting


5/8

Page

human health, Genetic studies of insecticide resistance in mosquito vectors,etThe students also had Hands on experience on microbial culture, growmaintenance, microbial size measurements by micrometry, qualitative estimatiof enzymes produced by endophytic fungi and isolation of endophytic fungi fromedicinal plants and anti-microbial assay. The Chemistry lectures and practicsessions were followed.

Mr.Suhaas gave an additional lecture on Liquid crystals and Dr. Raghu A. V. hagiven a talk on the application of polymers for drug delivery in this summer scho

The Valedictory function was presided by Dr. Shyamsundar Joshi and Dr. Shantha Joshi, retired Professors froUniversity of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. They gave a very interesting presentation on the growth atremendous market value of the Simarouba plant. H H Sri Vishwapriya Theertha Swamiji blessed the gather adistributed certificates to the participants.

GTC Project MeetingVisit of Indo-French Centre's Director

Dr. Amudheswari, the Director of the Indo-French Centre (IFC), New Dealong with her team comprising of Mr. Mural and Dr. Rao visited the camp

on February 08, 2011. After an overview of research activities of PPISpresented to her group; she opined that Though she was biased to visit tcampus, was very much impressed on visit in person to the campus ameeting the vibrant and enthusiastic team of dedicated researchers undthe leadership of the Director Dr. A B Halgeri. She also discussed variokinds of possible collaborations that are encouraged by IFC and gave ofaculty a brief idea of how to put in effective proposals for funds and macollaborations.

GTC Project MeetingVisit of Dr. Gururaja Karajagi

The famous Educationist and the Honorary Director of Poornaprajna Institute oFaculty Improvement, Bengaluru, Dr. Gururaja Karajagi, visited our Campus on theauspicious day of Akshaya Thriteeya May 6, 2011 in the presence of the Chairman HH Sri Vishwapriya Theertha Swamiji. The meetingwhich was attended by the faculty and students ofPPISR began with a welcome address by the Directorfollowed by the blessing of swamiji. Then Dr. GururajaKarajagi addressed the gathering and shared hisexperiences on the importance of achieving a doctoral

degree. He expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the founder chairmanH H Sri Vibudhesha Theertha Swamiji's vision of retaining the talents within thecountry.

GTC Project MeetingVisit by Academy Team from SIT, Tumkur

A team of faculty from Siddaganga Institute of Technology Tumkur visited Bidalur Campus on an AcademicInteraction Understanding with PPISR. Among the team were Dr. K.L. Shivabasappa, head of the department ochemical engineering Dr. Raghavendra Char Pavgada, Dr. Naveen Nagaraj who are faculty in the samedepartment. The faculty members of PPISR presented an overview of PPISR and talks on their fields oresearch. After a visit to the laboratories, faculty from both institutes agreed upon some collaborative researchThe SIT professors also invited the PPISR faculty to their institute.


6/8

Page 6

GTC Project MeetingTheoretical Sciences

The activity over the past six months in the Theoretical

Sciences Division had been in studying quantum secretsharing protocols in noisy channel situations; derivingthe operator sum representation of the squeezedgeneralized amplitude damping channel via the Choimatrix formalism; the thermal entanglement in atwoqubit system under an inhomogeneous gatevoltage and quantum phase transitions and geometricphase in many-body systems.

Number of publications/acceptances in peer-reviewed international journals over the last 6months: 4

1. Lectures delivered on Quantum Spin Chain System

at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, ISI JNCASRand RRI by Dr. Sujit Sarkar

2. Poster by Omkar Srikrishna and SrinathaNarayanaswamy at ICQOQC-2011, March24th-26th, 2011 held at JIIT, Noida, India

3. Two invited lectures on Quantum InformationTheory by Dr. Srikanth on April 23, 2011 aNIE-IT, Mysore

4. Dr. Suj i t Sarkar at tended Internat ionaWorkshop/School on Topological Insulator andTopological Quantum Computation at IIScBangalore

GTC Project MeetingMaterials Sciences

The research developments in the past six months in thematerials science Division comprise of: the progress ofthe industry sponsored project, where the catalystsrecipe was optimized and tested in the newly installedfully automated microreactor catalyst testing unit(CTU);Initial catalyst screening for conversion of bioglycerolinto glycerol carbonate where some catalysts showedgood activity and selectivity; Preparation ofnanomaterials of the photoluminescent materials which

are at present being characterized by DSC,SEM etc.;Preparation of Bi-based layered photocatalysts usinghydrothermal methods.

Number of publications/book reviews in the last sixmonths:2

1. Swetha. S.M. and Swetha B. V, participated inthe conference entitled Luminescence of

thnanomaterials held on 27 January 2011 organizedby Department of chemistry, MSRIT, Bangalore.

2. Poster by Swetha S. M. and two oral presentationsby Mr. Vijay and Ms. Swetha B. V. in a nationaconference entitled Social relevance of chemicascience 2011 held at the Department of chemistryKuvempu University, Shankaraghatta,Shimoga, on

th th26 and 27 of March 2011.

3. Swetha S.M. participated in a workshop entitledXRD and XRF :Advances in Industrial Applicationson 25th June 2011 at IISC

4. Dr. Raghu A. V. participated in the NationaConference on Nanoscience and Engineering(NanoSEC 2011) organized by the Indian CeramicSociety, Bangalore Chapter, held at IIScBangalore, on June 23-24, 2011

5. Srinidhi M. Participated the Materials EngineeringTEM and SEM demonstration workshop on Feb2011.

Biological Sciences

A couple of areas that the Biological Science divisionresearchers are working on are Endophytic fungi fromMedicinal plants and genetic control of mosquitoes.Hundreds of endophytic fungi from medicinal plants areisolated and many of these fungi show promising resultswith respect to the compounds which we are interested.We have also obtained encouraging results with respectot controlling of mosquitoes from different geographicalareas.

Number of Publications in the last six months: 1

Dr. Raghavednra Prahalada Rao form NationaCancer Institute, Fredereck,USA visited PPISR onApril 15th 2011 and shared his research experience onCeramide signaling Pathway-roles beyond apoptosisand cell signaling

GTC Project MeetingCurrent Research Activities in PPISR


7/8

Page

Achievements

1. Dr. Nalini's project titled Design and developmentof nanocrystalline layered bismuth compounds forphotocatalytic degradation of dyes and organic

pollutants in the visible region was recommendedfor support under the DST scheme for Fast TrackProposals for Young Scientiston January 1st2011.

2.. Mr. Omkar Srikrishna's presentation, "What is freewill?" was short-listed in the 6th All India Students'Conference on 'Science and Spiritual Quest'(AISSQ-2011) held during 12--14 March 2011.

3. Swetha. B.V. presented a talk on Utilization ofchemicals from biorefinery: Conversion ofbioglycerol to glycerol carbonate by solid basecatalyst which was selected as a First best oral

presentation award and handed over a certificatewith a momentumat National conference on social

relevance of chemical sciences, International yearchemistry-2011, 26-27 March, 2011, at KuvemUniversity, Shankargatta, Shimoga

4. A paper on "Quantumness of noisy quantum walkscomparison between measurement-inducdisturbance and quantum discord" by Balaji Rao, Srikanth, C. M. Chandrashekar and SubhashiBanerjee was Accepted for publication in PhyRev. A (Brief Reports)

5. Dr. R. Srikanth, was invited for a talk on The Worldnot hard enough at the International Conference Quantum Optics and Quantum Computati(ICQOQC) 2011, Mar 2426, 2011, held at JaypInstitute of Information Technology, Noida, India.

6. Dr. Sujit Sarkar has received an invitation to submiresearch papers in 'Nature Journal

Central Instrument Facility (CIF) at PPISR

The Central Instrument Facility (CIF) at PPISR hasseveral instruments that are necessary for generalanalysis like Spectrometers and some specific forMaterials Science users such as X-ray diffractometer,Conductivity Bridge, Gas Chromatograph etc., are

available.1. X-Ray Diffractometer (Bruker)

2. F T I R Spectrophotometer (Bruker)

3. Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (PE)

4. UV Vis Spectrophotometer (Perkin Elmer)

5. Impendence Analyzer (Hewlett Packard)

These instruments are available for use mainly by tscientists and the research students at PPISR and ocollaborators. This facility are also extended to othinterested external organizations, especially users froacademic/industrial institutions for a nominal charges.

The following may be contacted for furher details:

Dr. Nalini. G. SundaramTesting Facility In chargeEmail: [email protected]

Mrs.Latha SrinivasanAdministrative In chargeEmail: [email protected]

New Instruments Added

1. POWDER x-RAY DIFFRACTOMETER

The D2 PHASER table top X-ray Powder Diffractometer from Bruker isequipped with a ceramic sealed X-ray tube (Cu Kalpha source) and Ni filterand is ideal for qualitative, quantitative and structure analysis ofpolycrystalline samples. It is also outfitted with the LYNXEYE(TM) 1-D SolidState Fast Detector to collect high quality data in the range 3-90 degrees in2Theta with unprecedented speed and 150 times faster than a conventionaldetector system. The X-ray diffraction data can be collected for organic,inorganic, polymer and other solid samples. This is one of the most importantcharacterization tools for a Materials Scientist and is some times also usedfor identification of crystalline biological samples such as hydoxyapetite etc.


8/8

Page 8

2. CATALYST TESTING UNIT (CTU)

Fully automated micro reactor catalyst testing unit is a mini pilot-plant which can be used to test the catalysts for wide range ofreactions including alkylation, acylation, disproportionation,isomerization, cracking etc of petrochemicals and fine chemicalsto value added products. In this unit, reaction can be carried out on

fixed bed, down flow reactor under pressure with two independentreactant feeds with a carrier gas flow. The equipment containshighly sophisticated components such as mass flow controllershigh pressure feed pumps, SS reactor, furnace, weigh scales andwet gas meter which function with high accuracy. The operation ofthe unit is fully controlled by computer software. CTU wasmanufactured and supplied by Texol Engineering, Pune. It waspurchased for the industrial project sponsored by GTC, USA.

Dr. Udupi A Ramagopal is appointed as Asst. Professorin Biological Science. He has worked as a faculty at theAlbert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA. He iscurrently working on structural aspects of co-stimulatorymolecules of immunological synapse. He has gainedextensive experience in the area of synchrotron basedmacromolecular crystallography (particularly methodologyof phasing) and its applications to various aspects ofBiology, including routine structural genomics. As agraduate student at the IISc, Bengaluru, he has worked inthe areas of de novo design of non-natural amino acidcontaining peptides. He has authored/co-authored around

30 publications. Recently he has been awarded theProf.Ramalingaswamy Fellowship by the Govt. of India, for hisoutstanding research.

Dr. A V Raghu is appointed as Asst.Professor in Material Science. He hasobtained his Ph.D in polymer scienceunder the guidance of Prof. T MAminabhavi. Previously he had workedat the R & D Fuel Cell division of RelianceIndustries Limited, Mumbai, on thedevelopment of membranes for fuel cellapplications.He was interacting with NCLproject for the development of membraneelectrode assembly for fuel cell applications and haddeveloped polyurethanes nanocomposite membranes forindustrial applications. He has published 25 researcharticles in peer reviewed national / international journals ina span of eight years.

Dr. Bhargavi is appointed as Visiting Asst. Professor inthe Theoretical Physics Division.

New appointments @ PPISR Visitors & their views about PPISR

Mr. Ernst KohlerSud Chemie, Germany

We enjoyed the great hospitality of PPIR and look forward tcontinuing our excellent cooperation

Dr. Zhongyi DingG T C Technology, Houston, State of Texas, USA.

Natural Coverage with plants a blessing from heaven

Dr. S. Ananth RajExecutive Secretary, VGST DST , Govt. of Karnataka

Beautiful serene atmosphere to do research. Labs ar

immaculate. Good work in surface chemistry, Bio-sciences anphysics section. I wish bright future to all researchers

Mr. Olivier LarlusSud Chemie, Germany

Hope institute will grow as fast and as high as the tree!!thank you to all the nice team for welcoming us.

Dr.C.S.Adiga:Deputy registrar-Academics (Tech) Manipal university Manipal 576104

Beautiful and charming campus clean environment. Best forstudies.

Dr. Seetaram Acharya:Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY 10461Remarkable Place with unique opportunity waiting to bharvested

Mr. Jagadish Chandra .H.S:Inspector of Excise, Hoskote sub-division.

'Wonderful a research institute which is truly Indian and hahigh capacity to lead India in her scientific research. Good lucPPISR

jan to june 2011 news letter ppisr

Documents