Today marked the inaugural session of the National Conference on Bioresource and Sustainability – Current Trends and Future Prospects, hosted by the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM).
On the opening day of the two-day conference, organised by the Department of Applied Biology at USTM, the Microbiologists Society India (MBSI) conferred a lifetime achievement award on Prof GD Sharma, the USTM Vice-Chancellor.
Receiving the award, Sharma said, “This prestigious award is because of those students of microbiology in the North East of India who have immensely contributed to the field. Learning is a continuous process, there is a lot of opportunity in the field of microbiology in India.”
On the same occasion, USTM also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the MBSI. Two books were also released during the inaugural session.
MBSI president Prof AM Deshmukh said, “Although Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram are thought of as North East states, in terms of bioresources and biodiversity, the area is central to India as much of biodiversity is seen here.”
A few topics of the plenary sessions include the role of ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre for the North East, drug development and how to make investigational new drug (IND) applications, understanding emerging contaminants in soil and water, targeted delivery of pharmaceutically active components through ethosomal formulations, etc.