Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Gurgaon organized a two days national symposium on “Lipid in the forefront: A lot more to discover on 14-15 December, 2016. Lipids, commonly called “fats” are infamous for contributing to weight gain, however lipids in optimum amount are a healthy and important part of our diet. They play several important roles in our body including providing energy and helping in proper digestion and absorption of food.
In his address, Prof P B Sharma shared that our focus is on integrative science and interdisciplinary engineering. The two day National symposium on “Lipids in the forefront: a lot more to discover” organized by AIB under the visionary leadership of our renowned scientist Dr Rajendra Prasad with the objective of assimilating the wisdom of leading researchers in this important area of scientific endeavour of high value to the mankind at large. I am delighted that the symposium will be addressed by Dr Amitabha Chattopadhyay, Director, Grade Scientist, CCMB, Hyderabad, Dr Ram Rajasekharan, Director, CFTRI, Mysuru, Dr Musti J Swamy, Professor, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Dr Gaiti Hasan, Professor, NCBS, Bangalore and Dr Jitendra N Verma, Managing Director, Lifecare Innovations among others. He added
Scientists from several reputed institutes namely IISC, CFTRI, NCBS - Bangalore, IISER Bhopal, CCMB, RCB, University of Hyderabad, NCCS Pune were brought together at Amity University Haryana to discuss the relevance of lipids in cell organization and dynamics, signaling and various disease and their role in potential therapeutic strategies. These leading biological and biomedical scientists in our country including Prof. Amitabha Chattopadhyay, Prof. Ram Rajasekharan, Prof. Musti Swamy and Prof. Gaiti Hasan among others, shared their recent findings in the broad area of lipid metabolism and dynamics with an eye towards future translational efforts. Such an infusion of scientific creativity will help to set up a close knit ‘lipid community’ at the national level where new ideas will bloom and thoughts will be shared. Indeed, it was proposed during the symposium to establish a “Lipid Forum” at a national level to serve a platform for interaction between scientists and biotechnology industries to further research and innovation in this promising field.
National symposium begin with Prof. Amitabha Chattopadhyay talked by elucidated the need to study the basic biology of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) as they represent key therapeutic targets to treat a variety of disorders. Prof. Chattopadhyay’s work on the interaction of cholesterol with Serotonin GPCR receptor has opened up several possibilities of understanding the biological mechanisms behind mood disorders like depression and anxiety. Dr. Raghu Padinjat enlightened the audience from lessons learnt from the visual system of the fruit fly DrosophilaMelanogaster. He showed how cycling of lipid-rich cellular membranes help to maintain the architecture of an adult fly’s eye in order to adapt to different intensities of light.
Prof. Musti Swamy explained the results he obtained by using various advanced techniques such as X-ray diffraction and isothermal titration calorimetry to study properties of lipid-rich molecules that are involved in modulation of pain and inflammation. Dr. Sachin Kotak provided a fresh perspective towards the molecular processes governing cell division by explaining the intertwined role of lipids and proteins in this process. Dr. R Mahalakshmi talk was focused on structural and computational biology methods which reveal the physical basis for stability of protein-lipid interactions. Prof. Gaiti Hasan provided excellent insight into molecular signalling mechanisms influencing the development of fruit flies under nutritional stress. Through her work she tested requirement of lipids, proteins and vitamins for survival and development of fruit flies.
Prof. Rajendra Prasad’s lecture was centred on involvement of lipids in anti-fungal resistance. He explained how resistance to drugs targeting fungal infections is a wide spread clinical problem that can be potentially combated by understanding the biological mechanisms through various molecular and genomic methods. Dr. Saikat Bhattacharjee delivered a talk on the cellular signalling mechanisms involving lipid-anchored proteins that make up the immune system of plants.
Prof. Ram Rajasekharan’s inspiring talk entailed his discovery of novel enzymes in the biosynthesis of body lipids as well as his innovative societal research in temples and mosques for which is highly acclaimed. Prof. Rajsekharan’s work on body fats has led to the development of lipid-rich health food to complement the human diet. This was explained in detail by Malathi Srinivasan who works at his institution. Dr. Ujjaini Dasgupta delivered a lecture on how breast cancer can be identified using lipid biomarkers. Through a combination of translational and computational approaches involving assessing human samples through mass spectrometry, she proposed a novel ways of addressing the ever-growing problem of breast cancer.
Dr Avinash Bajaj attempted to address two major challenges of health science including cancer chemotherapy and increasing antimicrobial resistance using inter-disciplinary approaches of synthetic chemistry, membrane biophysics, material science, microbiology, cell biology and in vivo studies using mouse, rabbit and primate models. Dr. Shailza Singh’s work was a detailed analysis of the lipid metabolic pathways underlying the Leischmaniasis disease. Using mathematical modelling as well as mice as a model system she identified a potential drug target for this disease.
Dr. Malathi Srinivasan spoke about the continued efforts of Prof. Rajsekharan and herself at CFTRI of improving the nutritional status of the Indian population by promoting a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids. They have been the first to cultivate Salvia hispanica commonly called the Chia plant in India as chia seeds are the best vegetarian source of extremely healthy lipids called omega-3-fatty acids. This has proved to be beneficial for Indian farmers as this a short-term crop which requires less water and gives good yield. Dr. Ashutosh Singh discussed with the audience his past work on lipid-based anti-fungal approaches to combat vicious fungal infections that have no cure to date.
Conclusion ceremony of lipid national symposium begin with awarding top 3 participant evaluated by eminent scientists, namely, Dr. Musti J. Swamy (University of Hyderabad), Dr. Sachin Kotak (IISc, Bangalore) and Dr. Krishna Murari (AIISH, Haryana). And these were:
1. Decoupling fatty acid oxidation from longevity assurance downstream of dietary restriction by Sonya Verma, Hashnu Dutta and Arnab Mukhopadhyay, NII.
2. Non-Heat shock responsive roles of HGF-1 in Candida albicans are essential under iron deprivation and drug defense by Remya Nair, Mohd Shariq, Sanjiveeni Dhamgaye, Chnmay K. Mukhopadhyay. Shamim Shaikh and Rajendra Prasad, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of IT, Jawaharlal Nehru University, AIISH.
3. Targeting the regulation of membrane transporter proteins in Candida albicans to overcome azole drug resistance by Tushar jain and Dibyendu Banerjee, CSIR, Luckhnow.
This Lipid Meeting is an initiative to bring together all lipid biologists in our country on a common platform where they can talk, discuss, think and plan about lipids and beyond is created as an initiative of Amity University Gurgaon. Indeed, it was proposed during the symposium to establish a “Lipid Forum” at a national level to serve a platform for interaction between scientists and biotechnology industries several collaborative research ideas have already developed as an immediate outcome of this meeting. Their forum will also help not only in future collaborative research but for mega extra mural grant. It will also give a lot of new opportunities for AUG faculty to establish new collaborations with other faculty from renowned institutes all over India and exchange scientific reagents.