Thiruvananthapuram : Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram (IISER TVM) and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) Bangalore concluded the 5th International Chromosome Stability Meeting 2022 on 18th December 2022. The 4-day long event recorded participation from around 170 scientists, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows from Asia, Europe, the USA, and the UK to cover research involving many model systems and molecular approaches used to study chromosome stability. Further information on the same can be accessed from the meeting website.
Chromosome stability refers to an elaborate DNA damage repair and recombination process that culminates with the accurate segregation of chromosomes in progeny during cell division. Errors in these processes are known to be associated with several diseases, such as cancer and congenital birth defects. The objective of the meeting was to bring together established scientists and young investigators from India and abroad working on areas related to chromosome stability.
Speaking about the event Prof. J.N. Moorthy, Director, IISER Thiruvananthapuram said, “Institutes of higher learning such as IISERs are committed to provide high-quality education and world-class facilities to students and research scholars to pursue cutting-edge research in frontier areas of science. Conferences such as Chromosome Stability 2022 held in the IISER Thiruvananthapuram campus provides opportunities to students and scholars to interact with eminent scientists and listen to their research work”
The last few years have seen the emergence of a substantial number of principal investigators in India whose laboratories are engaged in addressing problems in the area of chromosome stability. There are currently no major meetings in India focused on chromosome stability. The meeting on chromosome stability began as a series in 2012 to fill this lacuna.
Topics discussed in the meeting were highly relevant for understanding many genomic disorders, cancers, and aging resulting from chromosome instability and DNA damage. The broad areas of chromosome stability discussed during the event include:
Ø DNA Replication-Repair-Recombination
Ø Centromeres and kinetochores
Ø Genome assembly and topology
The meeting also featured intense interactions between the student participants and conference speakers in poster sessions, discussions on career opportunities in this field and a panel discussion with journal editors on publishing research work.
Three recently elected members of the United States, National Academy of Sciences (Dr. Michael Lichten, National Institutes of Health, USA; Prof. Joseph Heitman, Duke University, USA and Dr. Harmit Malik, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, USA) who have been associated with this conference for a long time were also felicitated at this event.
Sharing their thoughts on the successful completion of the event, the organizers, Dr. Nishant K.T., School of Biology, IISER Thiruvananthapuram and Prof. Kaustuv Sanyal, JNCASR Bangalore said, “It is gratifying to note the impact of this conference series on the development of chromosome stability research in India. Many of the participants from the earlier meetings have gone on to have productive careers in this field abroad and also returned to India as independent scientists”.
This meeting series has facilitated the growth of this important area of biomedical research in the country and encouraged collaborative research, exchange of tools, and scientific personnel between Indian and foreign laboratories.
The International Chromosome Stability Meeting is well-known globally among scientists and trainees working in the field of chromosome stability and is expected to establish new scientific leaders in the area of chromosome stability in India. The meeting series has catalyzed the growth of the scientific community working on chromosome stability in India.
The 5th International Chromosome Stability Meeting 2022 was supported by IISER Thiruvananthapuram, JNCASR Bangalore, DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance, Chromosoma, The Company of Biologists, Clevergene, and SLV Scientific.
