A week in CSIR-IGIB

December 06, 2018

Hello friends,
First, a big thanks to CSIR-IGIB,New Delhi and Dr Vinod Scaria sir for allowing me to be a part of his research group for a week!

Before I share my experience I will love to introduce myself to you all.I Am a final year MBBS student from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Medical College (GMC),Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India.

From my initial college days I was very much interested into doing biomedical research and devote my free time exploring new avenues beside college curriculum.So the journey began from biochemistry lab of my college.With the help of my professors there I initiated a research project for ICMR STS followed by attending various workshops, research institutes worldwide to get hands on experience.It is on this course I came in contact with Dr Vinod Scaria.

It was this Dussehra holidays when I made it to CSIR-IGIB to get some real time experience at CSIR-IGIB. It was really an exciting week to be there. The researchers were humble enough to spare some time for me to let me have some hands on experience in computational genomics and his lab Project fellows and PhD students helped me more into it.So a big thanks to them also.Its amazing to know how computer and biology are put together to solve clinical problems.During my course of stay,sir let me meet and talk with other principle scientists who are clinicians like Dr Manikandan. Sharing words eminent scientists like Dr Sridhar Sivasubbu, Dr Chetana Sachidanandan gave an overview of various aspects of genomics. Dr Chetana who is an expert in Zebrafish animal model for studying various diseases gave a lab tour showing various stages in Zebrafish's life cycle and explained some of her works.

It is in CSIR-IGIB where I came to witness Next Generation Sequencing and other advance genomics techniques.

Before visiting CSIR-IGIB I had doubts about whether clinicans can also devote into clinical research in India. Translational research making it from lab to bed side by clinicans were only known to possible and is going on in western world.But a week in CSIR -IGIB with Dr Vinod Scaria who is himself a clinician and computational biologist made me realize India is no far behind.

I will recommend my fellow clinician friends senior and junior pursing medicine in any stage of their career to spend some their weeks of holidays in CSIR-IGIB knowing the new avenues in medicine so that they can bridge the gap between the lab and bed.


Mainak Bardhan is a Medical Student at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Medical College (GMC),Raipur, Chhattisgarh. He can be reached at 
bardhan.mainak@gmail.com

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