Category Biochemistry

Soumen Basak is an immunologist and virologist at the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi. He heads the Systems Immunology laboratory there.

He is known for his studies on NF- kappaB, a molecule that controls the activity of a gene.

Dr. Basak did his M.Sc. and PhD in Biochemistry from Calcutta University. He went on to the University of California, San Diego for post-doctoral studies.

He was awarded the National Bioscience Award for Career Development in 2018 and won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in biological sciences the next year.

Dr. Basak is a fellow of all three Indian Science Academies, namely the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

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J.BS Haldane, British scientist known for his work in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology and mathematics. J.B.S. Haldane, in full John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, (born Nov. 5, 1892, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died Dec. 1, 1964, Bhubaneswar, India), British geneticist, biometrician, physiologist, and popularizer of science who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution.

Son of the noted physiologist John Scott Haldane, he began studying science as assistant to his father at the age of eight and later received formal education in the classics at Eton College and at New College, Oxford (M.A., 1914). After World War I he served as a fellow of New College and then taught at the University of Cambridge (1922–32), the University of California, Berkeley (1932), and the University of London (1933–57). Haldane’s major works include Daedalus (1924), Animal Biology (with British evolutionist Julian Huxley, 1927), The Inequality of Man (1932), The Causes of Evolution (1932), The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences (1938), Science Advances (1947), and The Biochemistry of Genetics (1954). Selected Genetic Papers of J.B.S. Haldane, ed. by Krishna R. Dronamraju, was published in 1990.

Credit : Britannica

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It is commonly believed that art and science lie on opposite ends of a spectrum, but according to Isaac Asimov, the two are interlinked. He once said that scientists can “make great leaps into new realms of knowledge by looking upon the universe with the eyes of artists”.

Asimov was a living example of this connection. A distinguished professor of biochemistry at Boston University, he was also one of the greatest authors of science fiction stories.

His Foundation series, Galactic Empire series and Robot series of novels placed him in the ‘Big Three’ club of science fiction greats, along with Arthur C Clarke and Robert Heinlein.

Born on January 2, 1920, Asimov came from a Jewish family that moved to the U.S.A. from communist Soviet Union. His parents worked hard at building a new life for their family. They owned a Succession of small stalls that Sold candy, magazines and newspapers.

Asimov used to help out at the stalls and in his spare time cocoon himself in between the books and read the science fiction comics.

He wrote his first story at age 11 and his father encouraged him to try and get it published. Young Asimov took a subway to John W Campbell’s (editor of ‘Astounding Science Fiction’) office in New York and managed to meet him. Although his first story was rejected, Campbell saw potential in young Asimov and encouraged him to keep writing. Asimov never gave up and after many tries sold his first story, ‘Marooned off Vesta’ in 1939.

He went on to write or edit more than 500 books that would enthrall and amaze science fiction fans everywhere. His novelette, ‘Nightfall’ was voted the best science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

He coined the word ‘robotics’ and laid down three rules for robots in his work. They are: 1. – Robots cannot harm humans;

2. – Robots must obey humans except when an order conflicts with the first rule;

3. – A robot may protect his own existence as long as it does not conflict with the first and second rules. His book ‘I Robot’ was made into a successful film by the same name starring Will Smith. Asimov died on April 6 in 1992. This year we commemorate the 30th death anniversary of this great writer.

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Christiane Nusslein-Volhard is a German geneticist, who was the co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her research on the mechanisms of early embryonic development. Christiane Nusslein-Volhard was born in Heyrothsberge, Germany, in 1942. Christiane studied biology at Goethe University in Frankfurt and biochemistry at Eberhard-Karl University, Tubingen, before undertaking graduate studies at the Max Planck Institute.

Upon completing her PhD in genetics in 1973, Chritiane joined the University of Basel. There she undertook gene study on Drosophila, or fruit flies, an important model organism in genetics. In 1978, she joined the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. Christiane and her research partner Eric wieschaus studied the embroyonic development of fruit flies and, around 1980, succeeded in identifying and classifying the 15 genes that direct the cells to form a new fly. Their findings had major implications for our understanding of human reproduction, as well. In 1981 she returned to Tubingen, where she served as director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology from 1985 to 2015. She won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1991 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995, together with Eric Wieschaus and Edward B. Lewis.

Chritiane expanded her research beyond Drosophila to vertebrates. In the early 1990s, she began studying genes that control development in the zebra fish Danio rerio. Her investigations in zebra fish have helped elucidate genes and other cellular substances involved in human development.

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Mimicry, in biology, phenomenon characterized by the superficial resemblance of two or more organisms that are not closely related taxonomically. This resemblance confers an advantage—such as protection from predation—upon one or both organisms by which the organisms deceive the animate agent of natural selection. The agent of selection (which may be, for example, a predator, a symbiont, or the host of a parasite, depending on the type of mimicry encountered) interacts directly with the similar organisms and is deceived by their similarity. This type of natural selection distinguishes mimicry from other types of convergent resemblance that result from the action of other forces of natural selection (e.g., temperature, food habits) on unrelated organisms.

In the most-studied mimetic relationships, the advantage is one-sided, one species (the mimic) gaining advantage from a resemblance to the other (the model). Since the discovery of mimicry in butterflies in the mid-19th century, a great many plants and animals have been found to be mimetic. In many cases the organisms involved belong to the same class, order, or even family, but numerous instances are known of plants mimicking animals and vice versa. Although the best-known examples of mimicry involve similarity of appearance, investigations have disclosed fascinating cases in which the resemblance involves sound, smell, behaviour, and even biochemistry.

Credit : Britannica 

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