Journey Of NRSM

The National Research Scholars Meet (NRSM) in Life Sciences, previously known as Graduate Students Meet (GSM), is an annual event organized by the graduate student fraternity of the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research & Education in Cancer (ACTREC) with the motto “By the students, for the students”. The idea of organizing this unique meeting was first conceptualized in 2005, and since then this event has successfully gained accolades in the student community from diverse fields of biological and clinical sciences.
NRSM has involved scientists and research scholars from different areas of life sciences to discuss and brainstorm new ideas concerning their scientific interests. Some of the eminent speakers who have inspired us in past few years are: Prof. P. Balaram (then Director, IISC), Prof. S. C. Lakhotia (BHU), Prof. Satyajit Mayor (then Director, NCBS), Prof. M. G. Deo (then Vice President, Moving Academy of Medicine and Biomedicine), Prof. Rajesh Gokhale (then Director, IGIB, Biotechnology (DBT) and Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India), Dr. Satyajit Rath (NII), Dr. Pranoti Mandrekar (University of Massachusetts, USA), Dr. Sanjeev Galande (Shiv Nadar University), Prof. Dr. Jayant Narlikar (Emeritus professor, IUCAA), Mr. Sonam Wangchuk (Director, SECMOL), Dr. Bharat Vatwani (Raman Magsaysay awardee), Dr. T. Ramasami (Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri awardee), Shri Nilesh Desai (Director, Space Application Centre, ISRO), Dr. R. Ravi Kannan (Director, Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Raman Magsaysay awardee), Dr. L. S. Shashidhara (Director, NCBS, Bangalore) and many more.
The Meet provides a platform for young research scholars and students from all over India, to present their work in the form of oral and poster presentations. NRSM brings great minds from academia and industry to one common platform to share their innovative scientific ideas and work. Graduate, undergraduate, and post- graduate students from several renowned national institutes such as IITs, IISc, IISERs, NCBS, CCMB, IGIB, JNCASR, CDFD, CDRI, JNU, BARC, NCCS, ACBR, PGIMER and others have participated in the meeting.
NRSM has also hosted participants from industries like Xcelris Labs Ltd, Reliance Life Sciences, Merck Millipore, International Technology Park Limited (ITPL), Leica microsystems, AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd,
Zydus and more, to gain insights into the translational research being done in the industry. The conference is also encouraged and funded by several government agencies like Wellcome-DBT, BRNS, ICMR, LTMT, HBNI and CSIR. This year, ACTREC partners with TIFR-Mumbai, IIT Bombay, IISER Pune and NCCS Pune, forming the ACTIIN alliance to explore the nuances of life by acknowledging the legacies of model systems in science.
Together, we embark on our 21st annual conference, under the theme "BioSculptors: Models Decoding Life". In this milestone event, we probe into the biological complexities by exploring advanced model systems—those that have profoundly molded our understanding of life, and those poised to revolutionize our insights in the future. This discourse will undertake a comprehensive understanding of the diverse experimental systems in science, encompassing biological, mathematical, and computational frameworks.