Coordinator: Shri N. Deshmukh & Ms. Harita Raval, Tutor: Ms. A. Muralidhar
Coordinator: Dr. T. Sengupta
Coordinator: Prof. S. Chandrasekharan, Ms. D. Dutta & Mr. Durgaprasad K.
16Thu
Coordinator: Prof. Savita Ladage
21Tue
Coordinator: Dr. Anuttama Kulkarni
Abstract:
I) Proposed research: Hydra, a diploblastic cnidarians with simple nerve net organizes complex behavioral responses to food and light. How does it orchestrate such intricate responses with apparent lack of organizational complexity of higher organisms is still a mystery. My proposed research is divided in two broad objectives. 1) Understanding locations of various neurotransmitters in Hydra 2) Monitoring cellular, molecular and behavioral changes in body of Hydra upon Drug exposure. The project upon completion would validate Hydra as an in vitro like system to assay neurotoxicity.
II) Relevance to Biology Education: Biology is about Life, and hence biology research/studies usually involve experimentation with an animal model system. There are ethical, financial, and human power issues involved in including hands-on animal model research in undergraduate courses. Experimentation at school biology level suffers even more. There have been efforts for popularizing water polyp-Hydra as a model system for biology education in past, both, in India and around the world. On similar lines, I would like to design and execute experiments on Hydra. I will discuss possible areas of Biology, like Molecular biology, ethology, developmental biology, ecology where Hydra can be used as a model and the kind of experiments that can be done. Answering a scientific query is a challenging task. It requires consistent efforts, different tools and techniques, and most importantly, analytical and critical thinking skills. We hope that the project work will familiarize participant students and teachers to the process of scientific inquiry.
About the speaker: Anuttama Kulkarni has a M.Sc. (Life Science Neuroscience) from Sophia College for Women, University of Mumbai and a Ph.D. from University of Mumbai. She is presently working as a visiting fellow at HBCSE. Recently she has received a DST-INSPIRE Fellowship Award.