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...

IISER Pune faculty member Dr R Vaidhyanathan's work has been granted a US patent for the preparation of a covalent organic framework (COF) that can serve as an electrocatalyst to split water. Hydrogen and oxygen, the constitutent molecules of water, thus released, have vital industrial applicatio...

Self assembly of proteins into superstructures is of interest considering its implications in variety of applications such as gene delivery, vaccine design and diagnostics. Genetic engineering involving computational methods and rational design strategies have been employed to design protein superst...

[caption id="attachment_1643" align="alignright" width="2001"] Graphic by Rafeeque Mavoor[/caption] On any given day you get to work, park your vehicle, meet a colleague, surprise an old friend or taste vada pav for the first time. Only some of these experiences will become memories that will las...

Dr. Thomas Pucadyil runs the Reconstitution Biology lab in IISER Pune. His research is based on a novel approach to address questions in membrane biology that he pioneered during his postdoctoral work. His techniques have found great success, as evidenced by the many accolades he has received, the m...

Typically, the number of individuals in a population is a good estimate of whether or not bacteria can evolve under certain conditions. Larger populations carry more biological variation and adapt faster to new environments. This primarily happens as at least some of the population may cope with the...

Dr. Shouvik Datta (Physics) and Dr. Pinaki Talukdar (Chemistry) have been selected for the Distinguished Investigator Award (DIA) given by Department of Science and Technology (DST)’s Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB). This one-time career award recognises Principal Investigators of S...

In a collaborative effort from research groups at IISER Pune (R. Vaidhyanathan, Partha Hazra) and IIT Bombay (Dinesh Kabra), a covalent organic framework (COF) material has been synthesized, which can be used for the coating of white-Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) as an alternative for commerciall...

Dr Thomas Pucadyil, Associate Professor in Biology at IISER Pune, has been selected for CSIR's Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in the area of Biological Sciences for the year 2018. Named after founder Director of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) India, the prize recognizes outsta...

BS MS student Kartik Nirbhavne chats here with Prof. Satish Ogale whose collaborative work on novel solar devices has recently been awarded the International Newton Prize. The Newton Prize recognizes innovators from around the world who contribute to reducing poverty and aim for developments that wi...

PhD student Swapna Joshi has just completed a short project as a Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellow on pyaavs (drinking water fountains) of Mumbai. Swapna's study traces the history of pyaavs from their inception in colonial Bombay to the recent efforts to restore and conserve the pyaavs. [gallery ids="1511...

Dr. Rejish Nath and his team at IISER Pune involving his students Yashwant Chougale and Sagarika Basak have recently reported their work on quantum dynamics in the journal Physical Review Letters. Here, the team describes their main findings from this work.The movements of classical objects are easy...

One of the main improvements required in the field of Lithium ion batteries is to make them safer, more compact and more stable. However, the current generation batteries are made with flammable organic medium which could result in explosion and fire, and damage the battery compartment. Additionally...