Sibal honours women bioscienists

New Delhi, Mar 14 (UNI) Centre for DNA Fingerprinting Diagnostics (CDFD) scientist A Radha Rama Devi, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology researcher Suparna Sengupta and North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology's Kusum Arunchalam have won the National Awards for Women Bioscientists for 2005.

Dr Rama Devi, who founded the first genetic diagnostic centre at CDFD, Hyderabad, received the Senior Women Bioscientist Award for her work in the diagnosis of metabolic diseases.

Dr Sengupta, who works at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram, won the National Award for Woman Bioscientist under the young category for her contribution in the area of anti-cancer agents.

Dr Arunachalam, a botanical scientist at the North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology in Shillong, also received the National Award for Woman Bioscientist under the young category for her research in forest soil productivity.

The awards, which carry Rs 100,000 and a gold medal each, were presented by Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal at the National Institute of Biotechnology here last evening. The awards were instituted in 1999 by the government's Department of Biotechnology to recognise outstanding research by women bioscientists.

The first Innovative Young Biotechnologists Awards were presented to Amita Gupta (Delhi University), Samir V Sawant (National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow), D Sundar (Pondicherry University) and Gitanjali Yadav (National Institute of Immunology, Delhi).

The winners of the Innovative Young Biotechnologists Awards get a fellowship of Rs 25,000 per month for a research project if they are not employed. For those employed, the cash prize is Rs 100,000 per year during the project period.

The Rs 100,000-National Bioscience Awards for Career Development went to Apurva Sarin (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore), Dulal Panda (IIT, Bombay), GPS Raghava (Indian Microbial Technology, Chandigarh), Rajinder Prasad Roy (National Institute of Immunology, Delhi), Saumitra Das (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) and Sudip Chattopadhyay (National Centre for Plant Genome Research, Delhi).

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