October has arrived with its festive energy, packed schedules, and the excitement of what’s to come as the year draws closer to its end. As always, we bring you fresh updates, opportunities, and stories from across the life science community.
Applications are open for the 18th Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM 2026) (deadline for applications: 10 October), and preparations are in full swing for the upcoming Regional Young Investigator Meetings (RYIMs) in Tirupati (27–29 November) and Mumbai (4–5 December).
We co-organised the EMBO online course on Scientific Presentations in September, and extend our thanks to all participants for their enthusiastic engagement. We also thank everyone who applied to participate in the Publishing and Peer Review course, scheduled to take place at the end of this month.
The IBS team was at the NCBS Open Day 2025, where our colleagues Sreshtha and Manjula showcased IndiaBioscience’s resources and career initiatives. As we attend other public engagements this year, please feel free to drop by and meet us.
Here’s more on what we’ve been up to over the past month and what’s coming next.
The call for applications for the Young Investigator Meeting (YIM) 2026 closes today. YIM 2026 is being held at Symbiosis International Deemed University in Pune and is expected to be attended by 80 Young Investigators and postdoctoral fellows, several middle- to senior-career science leaders from India and overseas as mentors and speakers, and leaders from institutions across the country.
The Regional Young Investigators’ Meeting (RYIM) Tirupati 2025 will be held at IISER Tirupati from 27–29 November 2025, in collaboration with CSIR-CCMB, Hyderabad, and Krea University, Sricity. With the theme “Furthering evolutionary ecology and conservation science”, the meeting will bring together young investigators, mentors, and stakeholders for talks, discussions, and networking. The event will also feature a "Crafting Your Career" workshop on 27 November for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, as well as a post-conference nature walk in the Eastern Ghats on 30 November.
The Regional Young Investigators’ Meeting (RYIM) Mumbai 2025 will be held at S.V.K.M.’s Mithibai College of Arts, Chauhan Institute of Science and Amrutben Jivanlal College of Commerce and Economics (Empowered Autonomous) in collaboration Kishinchand Chellaram College, HSNC University and Gujarat Biotechnology University on 4 and 5 December 2025, with the theme “Science without Borders: Collaborating across Disciplines for Global Impact.” The meeting will bring together young investigators, clinicians, faculty, industry experts, and entrepreneurs from across Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra for keynote talks, panel discussions, and interactive networking sessions. A Crafting Your Career workshop on 5 December will further equip students and researchers with strategies for leadership, mentorship, and career planning.
With the theme “Clinicians Meet Technologists – An Era of Health Tech”, the meeting brought together researchers, clinicians, and entrepreneurs to foster collaboration at the interface of healthcare and innovation. Sessions spanned topics in medtech, sustainability, diagnostics, and neurosciences, alongside IndiaBioscience’s Crafting Your Career workshop, poster sessions, and lightning talks that encouraged peer learning and mentorship.
You can read the full report by Siuli Mitra & Akanksha Nair here.
Mentor talks at RYIM Bhilai covered research spanning computational biology, diagnostics, and neurosciences. Young scientists brought fresh perspectives to the discussion through presentations on environmental toxicants, sustainability, and brain mapping. Picture Credit: IIT Bhilai | Collage by Siuli Mitra
COMMUNITY BUILDING
We took part in the NCBS Open Day 2025, where our colleagues Sreshtha Mondal and Manjula Harikrishna displayed the resources and compendia developed by us over the years as well as connected over Careers in Science. We also had a fun activity in our booth where the question ‘How many Indian women scientists can you name?’ was asked to visitors. The activity was enjoyed by attendees as young as 5 years old to the oldest respondent being 75 years old. With a simple live visualisation, the viewers could also see how names were shared by previous respondents. The young kids especially went around the entire exhibition and asked for women scientists on their tables and came back with a list.
In the lead-up to YIM 2026, we spoke with the co-organisers who reflected on their YIM experience and shared fascinating stories that help understand their motivation to give back to the community by contributing to the platform that changed their career path.
Harinath Doodhi, now Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Life Sciences, GITAM (Deemed to be University), shared how a chance encounter at YIM 2023 led to his faculty position and his first funded research grant in India. YIM, for him, was more than a meeting; it became a launchpad for mentorship, connections, and a deeper understanding of India’s research landscape.
Next, we spoke with Sudarshan Gadadhar, Assistant Professor, inStem, Bengaluru. When he first attended the Young Investigators’ Meeting (YIM), he came in with a lot of questions. “I was not sure about where I was heading, about the kind of science I wanted to do, and whether I was ready for the challenges of independent research”, he recalls. YIM gave him more than answers; it provided perspectives, peers in similar transitions, and mentors who had walked the path before.
For last month’s Resilience and Representation in Research article, Moumita Mazumdar spoke with Ujjaini Dasgupta, Research Group Leader and a SERB-POWER Fellow at Ashoka University’s Koita Centre for Digital Health. Despite a six-year career pause and the challenges of re-establishing her research, Ujjaini has persisted in building her lab, mentoring students, and fostering an inclusive and empathetic environment. In this conversation, she reflects on her journey of resilience, the impact of mentorship, and the importance of support networks in shaping equitable academic spaces.
On a quiet Sunday, while discussing her mother’s struggle with ankylosing spondylitis, Sara Sajjadi found their conversation drifting toward genetic testing. The exchange, layered with science, uncertainty, and hope, reminded her of how deeply genes and environment intertwine to shape health. Sara recently completed her PhD at CSIR-CCMB, Hyderabad, where she studied how early-life nutrition, particularly vitamin D intake, influences epigenetics and long-term cardiometabolic health. Now, working at an IT consultancy, she uses artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery and leads projects that integrate genetics and AI to advance personalised medicine.
This article, written by Madhura Panse, highlights how the Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC) is spearheading innovative sustainability projects to make the city greener, smarter, and more resilient. Focusing on three key areas of urban forestry, water security, and sustainable transportation, PKC engages citizens, students, NGOs, and academic institutions to tackle pressing urban challenges. Initiatives like ConnecTree and TreeVerse track tree growth and carbon sequestration, while Project Jal Mulya develops data-driven water pricing models to ensure sustainable supply. In sustainable transportation, behaviour “nudges” encourage greater use of public transit to reduce congestion and pollution. By combining technology, research, and community participation, PKC not only addresses local issues but also creates replicable models for other cities.
Moumita from IndiaBioscience spoke with Poulomi Banerjee and Proloy Das, the 2025 IBRO Rising Star Awardees from India. Both early-career neuroscientists are establishing independent labs back home; Poulomi at SKAN RT, Bengaluru, focusing on early-onset Parkinson’s disease, and Proloy at BRIC-NBRC, Manesar, developing new analytical tools for complex human neuroscience data. In this conversation, they reflect on the challenges of setting up labs in India, navigating the research ecosystem after training abroad, and the promise of interdisciplinary approaches, AI, and patient-derived models for advancing neuroscience. Their journeys highlight resilience, vision, and a commitment to strengthening India’s place in global brain research.
In northwestern India, the early sowing of water-intensive kharif crops, well before the onset of monsoon, has become increasingly common, driven by economic incentives rather than ecological considerations. Shashi K. Sharma & Yashasvi Thakur argue that this shift is unsustainable, placing immense pressure on already stressed groundwater resources and misaligning agriculture with natural climatic cycles. With climate variability exacerbating erratic rainfall and heat stress, pre-monsoon cultivation increases water extraction, input costs, pest burdens, and yield risks. The authors call for science-based interventions: enforcing agro-ecological crop calendars, promoting low-water crops, investing in water-saving technologies, realigning subsidies, and empowering farmers with knowledge and economic alternatives. They warn that without decisive action, the drive for short-term productivity will compromise long-term water security and intergenerational justice.
The paradox of plenty: Water for crops, none for the soil (The image depicts healthy-looking kharif crops thriving under the summer sun, while the soil beneath grows increasingly parched and the drop symbolising the land’s silent longing for the monsoon) | Graphic by Suraj Kohli
The EMBO course on Scientific Presentations was conducted on 17–18 September 2025. Tailored for PhD students and early-career postdoctoral fellows, the workshop helped researchers adapt their scientific talks for diverse audiences by applying insights from cognitive psychology. Participants received practical guidance on slide design, presentation style, crafting effective analogies, and building confidence on stage.
We sincerely thank all participants for their enthusiastic engagement and look forward to seeing the impact of their improved presentation skills in the scientific community.
Registration for this course, scheduled for 30–31 October 2025, is now closed. This workshop will introduce early-career researchers to the process of publishing a manuscript in scientific journals, from submission to acceptance. Participants will explore preprints, Open Science, authorship, research integrity, and reproducibility, while gaining hands-on experience in writing and critiquing peer reviews.
Trainers:
Thiago Carvalho (Fellowsherpa; former senior scientific editor, Journal of Experimental Medicine)
David del Álamo (Fellowsherpa; former head, EMBO Fellowship Programme and scientific editor at EMBO journals)
Image source: EMBO website
Look out for future courses and workshops on our and social media channels!
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Proposals are invited from early-career researchers to develop and scale digital and blood-based biomarkers for dementia in India’s diverse cohorts. Projects should focus on biomarker discovery, digital health, or AI-driven data science to improve diagnosis and understanding. Fellowships are for up to four years duration, full-time, and will be hosted at the Centre for Brain Research (CBR), IISc campus, with up to three months per year at the co-supervisor’s UK DRI Centre.
The TNQ ISA aims to recognise and reward quality science, inspire scholarship, and encourage researchers to pursue a career in basic life science research. Each year, they reward creative, rigorous, and impactful life science research.
BeST Cluster, in collaboration with Biocon Foundation and NCBS, invites applications for #BioWISE 2025 Cohort 1: a Scholarship & Mentorship Programme for women in STEM. Fifteen PG students will receive scholarships, expert mentorship, and career guidance to advance their studies and careers in life sciences.
Life Sciences students interested in AI and Data Science are invited to CODS 2025 at IISER Pune (Dec 17–20). Limited travel grants are available, prioritising students with accepted papers. Recipients must attend all four days to engage with experts, peers, and cutting-edge research in data science.
As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, Syngene International Limited invites applications from Junior Faculty (Assistant Professors or equivalent) engaged in life sciences research at Indian research institutes and universities for Syngene Early Career Research Awards.
IndiaBioscience will continue its journey with you through shared stories, experiences, and opportunities that lie ahead. If you have an inspiring story to share, an insightful article to contribute, or a collaborative event idea, we invite you to reach out to us at hello[at]indiabioscience[dot]org.
Your active engagement contributes immensely to our shared journey.
