Visit to Rabea Girls’ Public School 1st May 2023 (Jigyasa Event)
The outreach team visited Rabea Girls’ Public School, Chandni Chowk, where students from 6 different
schools were present, on the school’s community day with Lab@Home kits for hands-on activity to
introduce the world of genetics.
Open Day at Mathura Road (4th May 2023 (Jigyasa Event)
250 students from 6 different schools in Delhi NCR visited the Mathura Road campus and witnessed the various aspects of genomics research that happens at IGIB.
Screening of the Vision of the Blind Lady (9th May 2023)
Vision of the Blind Lady is a docufiction created to raise awareness of genetic diagnostic for glaucoma, an eye disease affecting 100 million people globally. The movie was screened at National Science Center, Delhi.
This story is based on an actual project carried out during 2001-2003 at the CSIR-Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata. Prof. Kunal Ray was the principal investigator of the study, and the main work was led by Dr. Arijit Mukhopadhyay, former scientist at IGIB. The poor village woman Ruksana (fictional name) is the protagonist character of the film, whom Arijit met in Kolkata Medical College around 2001 as a part of his research study. Most of family members of Ruksana were suffering from sight loss and blindness except her eldest son.
The story goes to show that the genetic science played the role of her God. Arijit arranged genetic screening for all of her family members. After the screening it was found that her eldest son did not have the genetic mutation and thus was safe from this disease. While this was godsent to Ruksana, she felt helpless for her younger son who had the mutation and was going to go blind soon.
In empathy with the agony of the family, Arijit argues for medical intervention even before the symptoms are visible. And thus an ethical conundrum becomes apparent. While as a genetics expert Arijit was certain that the younger son will be blind soon, the doctors could not start the treatment guided by the current medical ethics. The film ends with the open question – an appeal from Arijit for all the stakeholders to reflect on the current ethical practices and asking should we revisit them.
National Technology Day 2023 (11th May 2023)
Screening of the Vision of the Blind Lady was organized for the staff of IGIB at Mathura road campus on the occasion of National Technology Day.
Interview with Dr. Arjit Mukhopadhyay and the directors of the film – Ms. Rumpa Guin and Mr. Subhabrata Dey
ACTREC Meeting (23 – 24th May 2023)
Two days bilateral meeting of ACTREC (Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer) and IGIB scientists was held at IGIB.
Bioinformatics Workshop at Rabea Girls’ Public School (24th – 26th May 2023)
As part of the continued engagement with Rabea Girls’ Public School in Chandni Chowk, a three day bioinformatics workshop was organized for IX – XI class students of Rabea School and Zeenat Mahal School. Dr. Jitendra Narayan and Dr. Kumardeep Chaudhary and their lab members conducted the workshop introducing Raspberry Pi and coding for genomics to the students.
