Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati
| Type | Autonomous Research institution |
|---|---|
| Established | 1979 |
| Affiliation | Department of Science and Technology (India) |
| Director | Heremba Bailung |
| Location | , , India |
| Campus | Urban |
| Nickname | IASST |
| Website | www |
| Website | www |
|---|
Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST) - a premier Scientific Research Organization in the North East Region of India is an autonomous R & D institution under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. The institute was conceived by the Assam Science Society and was inaugurated by Nobel Laureate Dorothy C. Hodgkin on 3 November 1979. The institute was nurtured by the Assam Science Society till 1990 and became a Research Institute under Govt. of Assam as a registered society under Society Registration Act. XIV, 1860. Till March 2009 it was supported by the Department of Science & Technology, Government of Assam. The institute was taken over by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India in March 2009 as one of its autonomous R&D institutes under the Department of Science and Technology.
History[edit]
In the year 1953 a society called Guwahati Science Society was born and later on November 19, 1956, it was renamed as Assam Science Society. This was the only regional society of its kind in India. It was through the initiative of this Society, the plan for establishment of an Institution in the name of Institute of Advanced Study in Science & Technology was taken by the Assam Science Society in the year 1979. Prof. J. Medhi was the president of the Society in that year and Dr. Anil Kumar Goswami was the Secretary. Dr. Binoy Kumar Tamuly was the Assistant General Secretary then. Most of the Science Faculties of Gauhati University, Cotton College, and Assam Agricultural University took an active part in the Society. The institute was formally inaugurated on 3 November 1979 by a renowned British Scientist Dr. Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. IASST was then under the aegis of the Assam Science Society. The first Honorary Director was Prof. Jamini Mohan Choudhury, former Vice-Chancellor of Gauhati University followed by Prof. Jyoti Prasad Medhi (1985–87), the renowned statistician served as the second Honorary Director. The research work in the institute was initiated by a few workers, who dedicatedly worked in shaping and trying to achieve the research objectives of the institute. In the initial phase, the Assam Science Society provided the necessary infrastructure facility and the Government of Assam provided annual grant-in-aid to the institute since 1990–91 to carry out research in frontier areas of science and technology. The long-standing demand of the scientific community of Assam for setting up a well-equipped and financially viable institute for advanced research in science and technology with a national character with adequate support from the Central Government has, therefore arisen as a rational aspiration of the scientists of the state which was reflected as one of the demands agreed to under Clause 7 of ASSAM ACCORD. After examining the initial project document as envisaged in Assam Accord, the Planning Commission of India, Prof. M. G. K. Menon (the then Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and Member, Planning Commission) suggested Govt. of Assam to constitute a high-level Task Force with members from the Central Scientific agencies to work out the details of the setting up of the institute. The Task Force under the Chairmanship of Shri P. C. Misra IAS (the then special Commissioner to the Govt. of Assam) recommended that “…the proposed national institute to be set up under ASSAM ACCORD should be nucleated around the existing IASST, founded by Assam Science Society, with suitable structural and organizational setup.” The Task Force recommendations were accepted and forwarded to the Central Govt. by Govt. of Assam and an interministerial meeting under the aegis of Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India recommended to enhance the scientific activities and research infrastructures at IASST through time bound research projects from various Central funding agencies. DST, DBT, and Ministry of Environment and Forest subsequently granted major research projects during 1994–2002. By the time Central Government constituted the L. C. Jain Commission in 1990 for drawing up plans for the economic development of Assam in the light of Clause 7 of ASSAM ACCORD had also recommended that an Institute for advanced research to be set up in Assam. Following the recommendation of the Task Force and L. C. Jain Commission, DST, Govt. of India drawn up plans with visits to IASST and series of meeting with Govt. of Assam and interministerial representatives. As a major step, DST, Govt. of India had sanctioned a sum of Rs. 10.65 Crore to IASST under the scheme “Upgrading of IASST” in the 9th plan with a major component to develop the academic and administrative building. IASST completed the construction of its own building at the present site (Paschim Boragaon) in a plot of land covering 20 acres allotted by the Government of Assam and shifted to the new location in June 2004. His Excellency, The President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam visited IASST on December 31, 2004, to interact with the scientists and research scholars. In his speech, Dr. Kalam emphasized on the importance of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology on the national scenario and urged the scientist of IASST to take an active part in the nation-building process. He emphasized on the full utilization of natural and human resources of the region to meet the demand of modern society. The Detailed Project Report and Expenditure Finance Committee Recommendation were then worked out by the Department of Science and Technology in consultation with IASST authority and finally the Central Cabinet approved the taking over the IASST as an Autonomous Institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India on March 9, 2009. Prof. Joyanti Chutia was serving as the Director, IASST since 2006 and become the first Director of the institute as AI under DST.
The mission, Vision, and Objectives of Institute of advanced Study in Science and Technology, Guwahati.
Mission[edit]
a. Building of State of the Art infrastructure for basic and applied research in the area of Physical & Life Sciences.
b. Generation of technology from natural resources of NE region and their application for socio-economic upliftment.
c. Generation of quality scientific manpower from among human resources of NE region
Vision[edit]
To emerge as a centre of excellence in frontier research areas of Physical and Life Sciences with international visibility and building human resources towards advanced scientific knowledge for Societal development.
Objectives[edit]
a. To create a center of excellence for basic applied scientific research in Physical and Life Sciences
b. To strengthen scientific research in core areas by generating funds through extramural projects. c. To attract and motivate the young talents towards scientific research.
d. To spread awareness for the growth of Science and Technology in the region through societal interventions.
Former Directors of IASST[edit]
IASST as Autonomous Institute under Govt. of Assam
- Dr. Pratul Goswami (11-03-1991 to 29-01-1996)
- Prof. Kamal Ch. Baruah (30-01-1996 to 15-05-2000)
- Prof. Kishori Mohan Pathak (i/c) (16-05-2000 to 31-07-2001)
- Dr. Mahanta Kr. Kalita (i/c) (01-08-2001 to 31-12-2001)
- Prof. Narendra Nath Dass (01-01-2002 to 30-09-2005)
- Prof. Joyanti Chutia (30-09-2005 to 08-03-2009)
IASST as Autonomous Institute under DST, Govt. of India
- Prof. Joyanti Chutia (09-03-2009 to 31-07-2012)
- Prof. Binod Ch. Tripathy (i/c) (01-08-2012 to 23-06-2013)
- Dr. Narayan Ch. Talukdar (24-06-2013 to 29-02-2020)
- Prof. Heremba Bailung (01-03-2020 to till date)
Campus[edit]
The Campus of IASST:
IASST's green campus of 20 acres at Paschim Boragaon. IASST has state of the art Laboratory facility, Seminar Rooms, auditorium, Student cum Scientist home, Canteen, and sport infrastructure. The research is supported by state of art Central Instrumentation Facility. A GLP compliant animal house facility is also under the final stage of construction.
Research Programmes and Administration[edit]
The institute is engaged in multi-disciplinary research activities, both in fundamental and applied, across frontier areas of science and technology such as Plasma physics, Polymer Sciences, Biochemistry, Traditional Knowledge-based drug development and delivery, Nano-science, Seri biotechnology, Microbial biotechnology, Environmental Sciences and Microbial Fuel Cell. Five major research programmes of the Institute are:
Basic and Applied Plasma Physics[edit]
Thrust areas of research: The basic and applied plasma physics section of the Physical Sciences Division of IASST has been engaged in a few thrust areas of research. For example, waves and instabilities associated with ion-acoustic waves, ion beam plasma interaction, plasma sheath boundary, dusty plasma are investigated low-temperature dc/rf discharge plasmas. Recently, a new laboratory has been developed to generate cold atmospheric pressure plasma for its utilization in a variety of applications such as nanomaterial synthesis for enhanced photocatalytic activity, surface modification, and biomedical applications.
Advanced Material Sciences[edit]
Thrust areas of research: The research activity of the Advanced Material Sciences group of IASST includes areas like sensor development, synthesis, and simulation of materials having applications in energy and environment sectors, soft materials, and their properties and designing of materials including environmentally friendly carbon and non-carbon based hybrid nanomaterials for biomedical applications. Significant effort is going on in the field of soft matter physics with emphasis on thin films of fatty acids, lipids, proteins, polymers, nanomaterials, etc. A group effort has also been initiated to understand plasmonic activities in nanostructures for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications using experimental as well as theoretical approaches. The Advanced Material Sciences group is in active collaboration with the Life Sciences group of IASST in developing materials for biological application.
Mathematical and Computational Sciences[edit]
Thrust areas of research: Members of the Mathematical and Computational Sciences group focus their research work on three different areas namely Stochastic Processes, Fluid Dynamics and Pattern recognition, and Computer vision. The Stochastic Process subgroup is working on some vacation models with reliable and unreliable service systems, developing some recursive solution to compute the exact probability distribution of different performance measures. The research subgroup of Fluid Dynamics studies heat and mass transfer flow of Newtonian as well as non-Newtonian fluid with both analytical and numerical approaches. The research subgroup of Pattern Recognition and Computer vision is dealing with the use of artificial intelligence in the field of medical images, ballistics and bio biometrics.
Bio-Diversity & Eco-system Research[edit]
Thrust areas of research: The programme includes a wide array of research opportunities in the domain of sericulture/seribiotechnology inclusive of the diversity of silkworm moth, the effect of anthropogenic activity in ecosystem and environment on the health of microorganisms and higher organisms within it and restoration of disturbed/polluted ecosystem. Other areas of research under BDER are understanding the range of diversity of bacteria in the interior of different plant parts including shoot, roots, and seeds, and their role in different crop development stages. The role of genetics, diet, and geography on the human gut microbiome and their association in human health and well being are also area of interest in this programme.
Traditional Knowledge Based Drug development and Delivery[edit]
Thrust areas of research: Traditional knowledge-based drug discovery (TKDD) research at IASST mainly focuses on validating the claims of locals with scientific evidence. The whole Northeast region (NER) of India is full of biodiversity of flora and fauna. Most of the people here still rely on traditional medicine for their day to daycare. Scientific exploration of potential traditional medicine is an urgent need of the hour to meet up the demand of the global herbal market. In this context, an approach has been made for in-depth reseuch in this field with experimental biology, biochemical evaluation, natural and synthetic chemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology etc., so as to reach the goal of therapeutic and nutraceutical product for prevention and cure of metabolic syndrome. For this purpose, we have selected some indigenous medicinal plants of NER having authentic therapeutic potential, further bioactivity guided fractionation is being carried out for targeting the bioactive molecules for the development of phytopharmaceuticals from natural resources
Research focus in these frontier areas is to generate scientific knowledge and technologies for the utilization of resources of the North Eastern Region and to contribute towards the overall scientific and economic growth of the country.
Two Major divisions and one centre headed by three professors of the Institute oversee the five R & D programs
- 1. Physical Sciences Division (Plasma and Polymer sections)
- 2. Life Sciences Division (Biological & Chemical Sciences and Resource Management & Environment Sciences Sections)
- 3. Centre for Computational and Numerical Studies
Extramural Research activities[edit]
IASST Scientists and fellows undertake extramural research projects on the topics of their expertise from various Government scientific and research agencies. IASST completed more than 200 extramural research projects and at present 70 extramural research projects are being conducted.
IASST Ph. D. Programme[edit]
IASST recruits Junior Research Fellows (JRF) through a national level entrance annually. National Fellows (DST-INSPIRE, CSIR-UGC NET, RGNF, MNEF etc.) are also given opportunities to join IASST with a specific research mandate. Ph. D. programme of IASST is affiliated to Gauhati University, Cotton University and Academy of CSIR.
National fellows[edit]
IASST has been providing ample scopes for the National Post-Doctoral Fellowship holders such as DST-INSPIRE Faculty, Ramalingaswami Fellow to pursue their research work after expert training from world-class laboratories. Other National Fellows N-PDF, DBT-RA are also regularly hosted at IASST.
Summer Internship[edit]
IASST has a competitive summer internship module with a stipend and travel assistance for Bachelor and Master students. The program runs once a year for a maximum duration of 4 months. Other than this internship program, master dissertation project work for interested students are allowed throughout the year.
Collaboration with Academic and Scientific organizations/institutes[edit]
IASST has signed a Memorandum of Association with Academic and Scientific Organization of the country for collaborative research on the topic of mutual interest. A few of them are:
- Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati
- Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
- Amity University, Gurugram (Manesar)
- Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Raisan, Gujarat
- Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Chandkheda, Ahmedabad
Facilities[edit]
Central Instrumentation Facilities[edit]
This center for research in the frontier areas include Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman Spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction(XRD), Atomic Force Microscope(AFM), Liquid Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer-Mass Spectrometer (LC-MSMS), Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MSMS), Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC), Thermo Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA), Fourier Transformed Infra-Red Spectrophotometer (FT-IR) with Microscope, Gel Permeation Chromatograph (GPC), Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS), DNA sequences, Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR), Ultra-centrifuge, High-Speed centrifuge.
Knowledge Resource Centre (Library)[edit]
This centre supports R and D programmes through its rich collections of about 10,000 book titles, 90yearlysubscribed printed journals, 3000 e-journals and 4000 printed back volume journals, and 24 x 7 days high speed Internet browsing facilities.
Bio-informatics facility (BIF)[edit]
It was established in the year 2011 through financial support from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. The functions of the centre include acquisition, creation and development of programmes and biological data management. The basic and advanced level workshop organized by the centre helped the researchers to analyze their biological data equipping various bioinformatics tools and applications and encouraging college students to pursue bioinformatics as a career.
Animal House facility[edit]
Animal house of IASST is situated in the premises of IASST and it maintains five types of animals viz, Albino rats (Wistar), Albino mice (Swiss), Guinea pigs (Duncan Hartley) and Rabbits (New Zealand white) for use in pre-clinical testing of the effect of extracts of herbal formulation, medicinal herbs and also in-silico designed synthetic drug on metabolic syndrome, induced in animals model. An Animal Ethics committee constituted as per guideline of Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) oversees clinical issues in animal experiments. This Animal House is registered with CPCSEA, Government of India, Animal Welfare Division.
Advanced Level Institutional Biotech Hub[edit]
This was established through financial support from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Research scholars of the life science division of IASST, undergraduate and postgraduate students of other institutes and college teachers are trained on basic techniques of microbiology and molecular biology. Training programs are organized regularly.
New facilities coming up[edit]
- Quality Control and Quality Assurance Laboratory
- BioNEST incubation center
- GLP compliant animal house facility
Notable faculty[edit]
IASST’S SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY[edit]
School outreach program[edit]
The Outreach Program of IASST provides the opportunity to School and College students of the North East to visit the research laboratories and interact with the researches of the institute. Students are given a functional demonstration of the sophisticated instruments of IASST. Research scholars and faculty members elaborate their research works and inspire students to pursue a career in scientific research.
Adoption of Scheduled Tribe Village for Socio-economic Development[edit]
North east region of India is home to more than 225 scheduled tribes (ST) scattered across hills (65%) and plains (35%) of the region's total landmass. About 8% of India's population is ST and among 23 ST communities of Assam, Bodo and Kachari are the dominant tribes and they comprise 38% of the total ST population. IASST's efforts for the uplift of the economic plight of ST community started in a pilot mode through an ST village adoption programme. A long-term association of IASST in two Bodo-Kachari-Rabha villages, Bakrapara and Kallapara began on Dec 26, 2016, under its Scientific Social Responsibility.
Scheduled Tribe Students’ Capacity Building Programme (STSCBP)[edit]
During the year, the institute launched a new initiative in the form of outreach activity for the capacity building of ST students. This activity is part of a formal programme named Scheduled Tribe Students’ Capacity Building Programme (STSCBP). STSCBP envisages enabling students’ visualization of their science books content by connecting them to laboratory facilities and experiments of IASST through short-duration stay and laboratory exposure in IASST campus.
Student activity[edit]
Science Promotion and Social Welfare Club of IASST Research Scholars[edit]
In tune with R&D interest, Government's inclination on scientific and social responsibility, and in following the steps of IASST faculty, a group of research scholars of IASST engaged into a noble venture to support the students of families in the neighboring habitation of IASST who are not getting quality education mainly because of their financial condition. A group of research scholars has given birth to a “Science Promotion and Social Welfare Club”, and in the last 3 years, these volunteers have been giving tuition-free of cost in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology to the students. The number of beneficiating students is gradually increasing every year as reflected in the graph below. The student volunteers are now planning to consolidate their efforts through an organized structure involving more resource persons and beneficiating students.
COVID-19 testing and research laboratory[edit]
IASST in collaboration with Guwahati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) and in coordination with National Health Mission, Assam has set up a COVID-19 testing facility at IASST.To facilitate fast testing and early treatment of the CVID patients. Most of the equipment (including RT-PCR, centrifuge, deep refrigerators, biosafety cabinets, autoclaves) and laboratory space of 200 sq. meters are provided by IASST. IIT, Guwahati, and Gauhati University also have shared two RT-PCRs for the laboratory. Govt. of Assam provided manpower for the lab (Doctors, Microbiologist, and lab technicians) and lab furniture along with the necessary consumables for the COVID testing. IASST faculty and research scholars are volunteering in all levels of the lab work to maximize the rate of sample testing.
References[edit]
External links[edit]
This article "Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
