School of Natural Sciences
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Imaging Protein Dynamics at Work
Molecular fluorescence, when observed with a time resolution of a few picoseconds, becomes a powerful tool for revealing the ‘wiggling and jiggling’ which makes the biological world ‘living’. With the state-of-the-art laser technology available today one can observe dynamics of molecules in ultrafast timescales with high sensitivity and selectivity. …..
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Supersonic Jet Spectroscopy of Weak H-bonds
Supersonic Jet Spectroscopy of molecular clusters is being used to investigate weak non-covalent interactions. Such forces play important roles in imparting structures to various biopolymers and also enable them to carry out many functions in living organisms under ordinary conditions that keep the biological systems ticking....
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Single-Molecule Protein Mechanics
Single-molecule techniques are novel approaches to understand the structure-stability-function relationship of proteins, especially force spectroscopy methods in studying mechanically relevant proteins. These techniques are also useful to drive chemical reactions and bond-breakage at single-molecule/bond level to understand the reaction mechanism and get the elusive ‘transition state’ properties....
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Tracking the molecular players in neurodegenerative disorders
In the department of chemical sciences, we investigate biophysically tractable yet biologically interesting systems, using (mostly) spectroscopic and imaging tools, most of which we build ourselves. Our recent focus has been on two problems: protein misfolding/aggregation, and vesicular neurotransmission....
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Biocompatible Hydroxyapatite Nanotubes
Hydroxyapatite (HAp) Hollow Nanotubes – Electron Mapping and Electron Diffraction unequivocally confirm that each tube is in fact having the specific stoichiometry of HAp.…..
About the Department
Scientists at the DCS explore the link between living systems and the physical laws that govern nature. They study molecules ranging in size as small as water and as large as a virus. The laws that govern interaction in molecules are best studied in well-defined and isolated small molecules. This information becomes applicable to design novel materials with exotic properties, of value to chemical and solar energy industries and to medical applications. To understand working of biological systems, studies are made on structure, dynamics and function of biological molecules. TIFR is a leader in state-of-the-art experimental techniques such as high field NMR, ultrafast lasers and single molecule methodologies.
News & events
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TIFR Annual Chemistry Conference (TACC-2019)
The Department of Chemical Sciences (DCS) recently hosted the "TIFR-wide Annual Chemistry Conference (TACC 2019)" at TIFR Mumbai during October 16-18, 2019. Please click on the image or link below to download the full program schedule. Photos of the event can be found here.
The TACC initiative was conceived as an annual TIFR wide activity where faculty colleagues and their students working on chemical problems across TIFR Centers engage in discussions and research presentations. The first edition of the meeting was held last year at the TIFR-Hyderabad campus. TACC-2019 was held in Mumbai at the Colaba campus as a full 3-day event. You can find photos of the event here.
Faculty members from the department presented snippets of their research in short talks during Oct 16-18. A special talk on P. C. Ray was given by Prof. V. Chandrasekhar on October 17th.
Two invited guest speakers, Prof. David Beratan (Duke University, Durham, NC, USA) and Prof. Steven G. Boxer (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA) presented institute-wide colloquiua on October 16th and 18th respectively. To learn more about the research background of these speakers, click on their names.
Students, visiting fellows, and scientific staff presented posters on the 16th and 17th. You can find the poster booklet containing the poster presentation schedule and graphical abstracts here. The winners of the best poster awards were: Simli Dey, Ravinder Kumar, and Pallavi Thakur.
The student organized Chem-Quiz competition returned with a bang on October 17th (Organizers: Shubhangi, Rishi, Pulkit, Rohit, Smitaroopa, Aditya, and Dipin). The Chem-Quiz Winners were Team B (Raghu Ramakrishnan, Kunika Gupta, Mitradip Das, and Saideep).
Graduate students (Ayan, Vicky, and Ankur) presented two engaging talks (Music and Chemistry & Chemistry of/for/in space) on October 18th
Please click here for the full program schedule and here for photos of the event. In case of questions or to provide feedback please email: ravi.venkatramani@tifr.res.in
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Awards for Jyotishman Dasgupta's Research Group
Congratulations to Jyotishman Dasgupta and his group members for recognition of their research efforts!
1. Nita Ghosh won the best poster award in FCS2017 in IIT Guwahati for her poster titled:
"Towards tracking long-lived charge transfer dynamics in non-parallel stacks of donor and acceptor chromophores"
2. Arup Kundu won the best poster award in 2017 DCS annual meeting for his poster titled:
"Probing The Excited State Dynamics of all-trans-Lycopene Aggregates: A Transient Pump-Probe Spectroscopic Study"
3. Sunandita Paul won the inaugural Mihir Chowdhury Fellowship award and was adjuged the TOP poster presenter in FCS2018 held at JNU and IIT Delhi this November. As part of the award Sunandita received a Rs 1 lakh travel grant to attend conferences of her choice anywhere in the world. Her poster was titled: "Towards light-induced carbocation generation in a supramolecular cavity"
4. Arup Kundu won one of the 5 best poster awards at FCS2018 held at JNU and IIT Delhi this November. His poster was titled:"Probing The Excited State Dynamics of all-trans-Lycopene Aggregates: A Transient Pump-Probe Spectroscopic Study"
5. Jyotishman Dasgupta received the Best Young Investigator Award from the 2018 Chemistry of Materials meeting held in Kovalam Kerala.
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Awards for Vivek Polshettiwar`s research group
Mr. Rustam Singh received best poster award in 4th International Conference on Advanced Nanomaterial and Nanotechnology (ICANN-2015), one of the best nano-conference in India, organized by IIT, Guwahati during Dec 8-11, 2015.
Mr. Rustam Singh received best poster award in ICONSAT 2016 organized by IISER, Pune and DST, Nanomission. He presented his recent work on, "TiO2 coated KCC-1 for photocatalysis: Nanoparticle formation and quantum confinement".
Dr. Polshettiwar is recognized as one of the 'Emerging Investigators 2016' for Novel design strategies for new functional materials by Journal of Materials Chemistry A of Royal Society of Chemistry, UK.
Dr. Polshettiwar has been awarded prestigious "Bronze Medal" by Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI) for 2017.
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Awards for Deepa Khushalani`s Research Group
TIFR research scholars and staff have consistently garnered accolades at both international and national meetings. Congratulations on their latest achievements!
Mr. Chandanshive Balasaheb B. (Research group of Prof. Deepa Khushalani)
Mr. Chandansive Balasaheb B. won the 3rd spot in the best oral presentation award at the International Conference On Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology (Nano 2015) held during Dec 7-10th at Trichengode,Tamil Nadu. The title of his talk was: "Hydroxyapaptite Nanotubes: Biocompatible and Internalization Study". Click here for pics! Read more about research in the Khushalani lab here.
Calendar
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January 13, 2020 at 4.00 pm in AG-69
Seminar by Dr. Sunil K. Ghosh, Bio-Organic Division and Food Technology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai
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January 10, 2019 at 11.30 am in AG-80
Seminar by Prof. V. Ramamurthy, Department of Chemistry, University of Miami, USA
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December 12, 2019 at 2.30 pm in AG-80
Seminar by Prof. Shanteri Singh, Institute for Natural Products Applications and Research Technologies, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Oklahoma, USA
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December 2, 2019 at 4.00 pm in AG-69
Seminar by Mr. Sahil Kumar, Dept. of Chemical Sciences, TIFR, Mumbai