Scientifically Speaking – Season 2 | Lecture 1 – Insects are Us | Tuesday, July 14, 7 PM

Insects are Us
Haven’t we asked the questions: “Who am I?”, “Where and how did I come from?”, “Why am I the way I am” etc.? While these questions are ancient, satisfactory answers have started emerging only in the past 150 years. A major leap in our understanding has come from studies on the fruitfly (normally seen flying around well-ripened fruits, mostly bananas), Drosophila Melanogaster. Studies on fruitflies have provided answers to such fundamental questions about life.

Join Prof. Shashidhara to discuss how these flies have helped us address issues related to cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. and finally cognition and consciousness. 

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About the Speaker:

Prof. L S Shashidhara
Dean of Research and Professor of Biology, Ashoka University
Ph.D. University of Cambridge

Prof. Shashidhara is currently on lien from IISER Pune. He specializes in Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Evolutionary biology.  Prof. Shashidhara has served in the past as Vice-President of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and Secretary-General of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). He is currently the President of IUBS (first Indian to be elected in its 100 years of glorious history). He is steering an international project on Climate Change Education. Recently, he was invited to speak about Climate Change Education at the High-Level Political Forum 2019 (HLPF 2019) at the United Nations.

For his contribution to basic and applied biology, Prof. Shashidhara is recognized with CSIR Technology and SS Bhatnagar Prizes and JC Bose National Research Fellowship.