Research seminar on “Bacterial resilience from single cell to colony scale using Mathematical Models”

Resource Person:

• Dr. Garima Rani, HFSP Cross-Disciplinary Fellow, Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg

The School of Sciences organized a research seminar on "Bacterial resilience from single cell to colony scale using Mathematical Models" on 13th January 2023 at 01:00 pm in the I – Block auditorium. The research talk in this seminar was given by Dr. Garima Rani, Human Frontier Sciences Program (HFSP) Cross-Disciplinary Fellow, Department of Physics & Materials Science, Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

Ms. Moditma, Assistant Professor, delivered a welcome address and introduced the speaker, Dr. Garima Rani to the audience. Prof. Pradeep K. Varshney, Dean, School of Sciences, welcomed the speaker by presenting a sapling as a token of respect and affection. Dr. Garima shared her knowledge on bacterial cells by presenting a journey of her research work beginning from her Master’s thesis. A brief introduction to bacteria was given, suggesting their dizzying ability to colonize even the most hostile of habitats and serious public health challenges in light of increased display of antibiotic resistance by them. To counter this, the need for developing newer antimicrobial agents was discussed, beginning with an understanding of the physical principles underlying bacterial resilience. The mechanical stability of the bacterial cell from the viewpoint of elasticity theory was first discussed. Modeling of action of new age anti-microbial polymers on bacteria using molecular dynamics simulations and experiments was then presented. A glimpse of the use of machine learning methods for image analysis and system training was also given. Thus the speaker presented an overview of new dimensions in the study of bacterial resilience by using a combination of theory, simulations and experiments, to keep the audience from diverse backgrounds engaged during the talk. Several questions were asked during and after the talk, which were humbly taken by the speaker. The seminar saw an interesting exchange of knowledge between the speaker and the faculty members, opening up possibilities for future research collaborations.