Announcement
SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) in collaboration with BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India) is organizing a three-week BIIS (Biotech Innovation Ignition School) for validating, value adding and product development around grassroots innovations. The BIIS will develop solutions for grassroots applications forhuman, animals, and agricultural applications including herbal technologies, medical devices and microbial application. The BIIS-2 will be held at Ahmedabad, February 5-26, 2018.It is likely that some other institutes like GSBTM,LJ Group of Institution, PERD etc., may also join the school.
The selected students will be assigned individual projects in primarily four action-research areas drawing upon the Honey Bee Network Database:-
1. Pharmacognosy/Phytochemistry - SRISTI’s Grassroots database contains many traditional knowledge practices as well contemporary innovations from across the country. These projects would involve validation/value addition to these practices. A few of these practices are presented here-http://www.sristi.org/cms/sristi-birac, http://www.sristi.org/hbnew/honeybee_database.php
2. Microbiology-SRISTI has a Microbial diversity bank containing 8000+ organisms (bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes) isolated from the soil samples collected during Shodh Yatras in different parts of the country (http://www.sristi.org/cms/shodhyatra). An extensive study of screening these isolated microbes for novel human, animal, and agricultural application would be conducted.
3. Medical devices- Value addition/product development of any of the open source projects listed on our summer school website (http://summerschool.sristi.org/ ) regarding medical devices for human and animal health care or other medical devices for meeting unmet social needs.
4. Agriculture- Validation of grassroots practices by conducting field trials for the purpose of product development complemented by lab screening.
The abstracts along with the objective of the projects will be shared with the selected students one week before the start of the BIIS. The participants would be expected to develop a project proposal and a work plan. These students would receive an expert feedback on their proposals from the reviewers. These students will also receive hands-on training in various techniques of microbiology, phytochemical extraction procedures, and using various lab equipments(AAS, HPTLC, HPLC etc.) as per the need of the project in the first week of the event. The Faculty from the institutions of participants can also be associated with their projects as external supervisors. At least ten of the outstanding selected projects from BIIS would further receive a research grant of Rs.1 lac to take their projects into subsequent stages of product development either at their institute or at SRISTI lab. In selected cases,
It is hoped that each participant becomes a volunteer of the Honey Bee Network which has helped in scouting and disseminating rural creativityand innovation over the last three decades.
All the output will be credited to the knowledge providers and can be published thereafter with prior written concurrence of the BIIS team and knowledge providers.
Highest ethical code of Biotech research is expected to be followed. Team spirit and willingness to develop open source solutions will be highly encouraged. Peer learning will be strongly encouraged.The findings will be shared with knowledge providers in local language with the help of SRISTI and Honey Bee Network team.
Students are invited to participate in this SRISTI-BIRAC initiative by filling the Google Form: bit.ly/SRISTIBIIS2R. Students of biotechnology, agriculture, microbiology, bioengineering, phytochemistry, pharmacology, pharmacognosy etc., are specially invited to apply. Above all, students would get an invaluable opportunity to interact with both national and international experts as well as grassroots practitioners/innovators in their respective fields.
Kindly email at BIIS[at]sristi[dot]org or call at 922 776 1140 for further queries.
Last date for submission of application is 20th January 2018.
