PIC had the honour of hosting Prof. L.S. Shashidhara at the 3rd Science for Society Lecture. He spoke on “Science to Fight Covid-19 and Cancer: Perspectives from Pune” and made a detailed presentation. The event was chaired by Dr. R.A. Mashelkar and moderated by Dr. Aravind Chinchure, Founder & CEO, QLeap Academy.

Prof. Shashidhara began by noting that all societal problems were complex and their study needed to be approached with care and openness to tap into the varied findings. He focused on cancer in the form of metastasizing cells and the fast-spreading Covid-19 infectious disease. Both, he noted, had certain similarities but different challenges. He highlighted the elements of mega science projects such as the push for understanding the Sars-Cov-2 virus and its spread and emphasized the need for proper application of the scientific method on these projects for accuracy and timeliness of findings and outcomes.
Moving from basic science, he noted that applied science and an interdisciplinary approach were crucial to being able to translate research from projects to usable outcomes. He appreciated the vital contributions of the Pune Knowledge Cluster, IISER Pune and other institutions for providing research and inputs for evidence-based medicine for cancer and clinical trials-based vaccines for Covid-19. He said that having clear, clean, collated and categorised data helped the administration and associated organisations to prepare a collaborative and coordinated response to the pandemic and put emergency infrastructure in place. The session saw overwhelming attendance with participation by researchers from India and also a few from Bangladesh.

Please find the link to the video recording of this session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYpsTaUx3YQ