Most things are what they are, no matter what their genesis. For calcium though, provenance matters. This is the take-home from a recently published study from Dr. Suhita Nadkarni’s group at IISER Pune in which the team has investigated if and how calcium ions from different sources impact memory ...

In a recent series of papers, Dr. Raghavendra Kikkeri’s group explores the therapeutic potential of heparan sulfate, a linear carbohydrate (polysaccharide) molecule, which is typically found at the cell surface and in the extracellular matrix that holds cells together. Shown to be important...

In a paper in the Biophysical Journal, Dr. Chaitanya Athale’s group described an automated programme to track intracellular granules while viewing the molecules under a differential interference contrast (DIC) microscope. This image-analysis programme will help researchers observe, follow, and stu...

In a paper published in Cell Chemical Biology, Dr. Siddhesh Kamat's research group studied the role played by the lipid tail of lyso-PS in regulating the function of cells involved in immune response.    Lysophospholipids are a class of signaling lipids that regulate many important physiolo...

On the biomechanics of the somersault movement in Hydra In a recent paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the research groups led by Prof. Sanjeev Galande from the Biology department and Dr. Shivprasad Patil and Dr. Apratim Chatterji from the Physics department at IISER Pu...

In a paper published in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine, in collaboration with the BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospitals in Pune, researchers from IISER Pune report that by accurately measuring the ability to smell, one could detect an asymptomatic COVID-19 infection caused by SARS-CoV-2...

In a paper that addresses the increasing levels of water pollution, Prof. Sujit Ghosh’s group has developed a  hybrid material that can purify water by removing a wide range of toxic ions from water. “Inorganic oxoanions, classified among the primary substances present in polluted water, en...

Like tagging your grey suitcase with a bright ribbon helps you spot it from among tens of others, tagging molecules with fluorescent probes gives certain functionalities to the molecules we try to study. We can now see where they reside in a cell, when they traverse, which other molecules they mee...

Adding to our understanding of molecular interactions in cancer is a recent paper from Dr. Nagaraj Balasubramanian’s group at IISER Pune. Here, the team showed that Fibulin-1 protein from the extracellular matrix can interact with and regulate the activity of the epidermal growth factor receptor (...

The low-cost ICU ventilator developed earlier at the Physics department of IISER Pune will now be jointly taken up by Accurate Gauging & Instruments Pvt. Ltd. and IISER Pune to be built for regulatory approvals followed by production.  Towards this, a Memorandum of Understanding for...

Water is essential to sustain life on earth. Access to safely managed drinking water in a way that it’s available when needed and is free of contamination is not a given to many communities around the world. About two-thirds of our planet’s surface is covered in ocean waters, but this water canno...

A recent paper from Dr Amrita Hazra’s group at IISER Pune offers new insights into the puzzle of how vitamin B-12, one of the largest ‘small molecules' made in nature, is pieced together. They do this by reconstituting the activity of two novel enzymes involved in B-12 synthesis and find that the ...

Named in honour of the mineralogist Lev Perovski, perovskite is the mineral form of the inorganic compound calcium titanate (CaTiO3). A large fraction of earth’s minerals has various compositions of metal oxides with the same perovskite structure. Such oxide perovskites are commonly used in our hous...

While it is well-recognised that expanding testing capacity is a critical element in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, testing is a logistically and technically formidable task for a large population such as ours. Research institutions have the infrastructure and technical know-how required f...

IISER Pune faculty members Dr. Umakant Rapol and Dr. Sunil Nair have developed a low-cost ventilator put together with readily available and easily source-able parts. The researchers are now looking to get in touch with manufacturers to produce this ventilator model. In this video produced by the...

As the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to threaten the health and wellbeing of millions around the world, research and innovation offer a crucial line of defence against the virus.   Researchers at IISER Pune are applying their expertise to learn how the virus proliferat...

IISER Pune researchers are involved in a multi-institutional effort to produce open-source computer-aided-designs for a mechanical ventilator that is currently in use in hospitals. This work is being carried out in collaboration with Capt. (Retd.) Rustom Bharucha from Bharucha Instrumentation and Co...

Majority of the drugs available in the market for cancer bind to proteins, nucleic acids, receptors, etc. present in cancer cells and help destroy the cells. On many occasions, cancer cells generate resistance against these drugs during the treatment period. So, there is a continuous need to develop...

Antarctica, with an annual average temperature anywhere between minus ten to minus sixty, is one of the most inhospitable places on the Earth. However, this was not the case forty million years ago; a mild climate had prevailed there. Towards the end of the Late Eocene, approximately 33.7 million ye...

Watching Viswanathan Anand taking time to make his move when he plays against Magnus Carlsen reminds us about the famous theory of speed-accuracy trade-off. This idea has been challenged and debated in the field of olfaction research – forming two schools of thought, one supporting a causal link bet...