CHASCON2020 commences today in Online Mode at PU

Chandigarh sunita shastri:The 14th Chandigarh Science Congress (online mode) CHASCON 2020 commenced today which is being organized by Panjab University in association with Chandigarh region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster(CRIKC).This event was initiated with a brief introduction and a warm welcome by the Coordinator Prof Deshdeepak Singh. Also, the Dean Sciences, Prof Prince Sharma enlightened the students with his views about the event and its history. Professor Anil Bhardwaj, Director, Physical Research Lab, Ahmedabad graced the inaugural session and spoke on the topic Indian Planetary Missions. He included various aspects of space missions, Mission Mangal, moon solar Wind interactions, brief introduction about Chandrayaan 2 and a lot more. Prof Anil gave his views on the success of Mangal Yaan and he motivated the students to join Planetary Science and pursue Space research. The students were motivated and inspired which was evident with their curiosity, inquisitiveness and interest with which they added comments online. He added that India had sent satellite to Mars for six months initially but India has now got six years to get information from Mars which will be very useful for research purposes.The next speaker, Prof Amulya K Panda, Director, NII, New Delhi gave a very informative talk about the recent Vaccines. His talk was focused on the topic Challenges in the development of vaccines. He illustrated with his presentation that normally it takes a decade for the vaccine to come to the market but what could be the major hurdles for the coming of the vaccine in reference to the Corona Pandemic. Nextly, a very eminent scientist, Prof MRN Murthy, AstraZeneca Chair, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bangalore, gave an amazing talk on the title the structural Biology of Coronaviruses. He emphasized on how SARS Cov2 is evolving at a drastic fast rate and why the transmission rate is relatively faster than other viruses.The session for the Pandemic Covid 19, also included another prominent scientist, Prof R Vardarajan, Molecular Biophysics Unit, IISc, Bangalore. He presented a very informative talk on Immunogen Design for COVID Vaccine. He gave very useful insights of what are the types of corona Vaccines being introduced till now and how we can fight against the novel virus. He told about a very important aspect that these vaccines don’t elicit a memory response, which can be a great hurdle in providing immunity.Post Lunch, speaker, Prof Ravi Gupta, Medical Superintendent, GMCH 32, Chandigarh, gave a talk on the ‘Clinical Management of Covid and the way forward for innovation’. His talk was divided into three parts: their experience at GMCH and the Challenges faced during the corona pandemic, the standard Treatment of COViD as of Today and Innovations during Covid era.The event was graced with another speaker, Prof Paula Videira, Glycoimmunology Group at UCIBIO, Lisbon, Portugal. She delivered a lecture on the topic ‘Glycoimmunology: sugars on the fuss for improved immunotherapies?’ She gave her insights into the different glycans and how they play a role in providing immunity, acting as a receptor and many more. Herein she explained how ACE2 Receptor in Sars Cov2 plays a vital role for high transmission.Today ,around 400 students joined the conference on CISCO WEBEX platform. The Students were delighted tlisten to all the speakers and this was a great success.