CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, celebrated Founder’s Day on the occasion of the birth anniversary of their Founder Director, Dr PM Bhargava on 22 February 2022. “Dr PM Bhargava set the foundation for setting up a world-class research institute in life sciences in India.

“The institute’s vision was and has been to address fundamental questions of biology and address societal challenges through it,” said Dr Vinay K Nandicoori, Director, CCMB. “Now after more than 40 years of CCMB and training more than 400 PhD students, we see our students playing an important role in multiple areas of life sciences. The celebrations on our Founder’s Day is a reminder of that.” 

The celebration, each year, is organised by CCMB students to bring the alumni back on campus and learn from their experiences. The alumni speakers this year were Dr Rana Anjum, Director-Oncology Clinical Science, GSK in Boston, USA, and Dr Suresh Chintalapati, Co-founder, Triangulum Biopharma, California, USA and Mabgenex, Hyderabad, India. Both spoke of their career journeys on transitioning from academia to the life science industry. Dr Anjum also highlighted the challenges she had to overcome as a woman scientist in the family who wanted to work beyond her city and country. Dr Chintalapati spoke of his navigation through academia while dealing with dyslexia.

“The opportunities after completing a PhD are limitless, ranging from various positions in academia to industry and even science communication. CCMB has built a rich heritage, and CCMB graduates have penetrated in all areas of science. Inviting these CCMB alumni provides an avenue for the current graduates to connect with them and get a perspective on the opportunities that lie ahead after completing a PhD,” said the student organisers.

Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India was the guest speaker for the event. He underlined the importance of restructuring science research institutes in the country. He urged greater collaborations across scientists interacting across disciplines, including with the industry. He emphasised that it is important for society to nurture young scientists to address questions of their interests while forging collaborations. This is imperative for addressing the questions of the future, he said.

In addition, the day had many short exciting talks by students on unaddressed questions to understand life. The day ended with a Carnatic vocal performance by Shri Modumudi Sudhakar accompanied by Shri Dinakar on violin and Shri Jayabhaaskar on mridangam.