Dr Hemant Purohit [Former Head, Environmental Biotechnology &/or Genomics Division, CSIR- National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur] is among the pioneering scientists who initiated the microbial genomics program in India. He is best known for applying microbial genomics tools in attaining basic knowledge to products in different models such as contaminated ecological niches, sewage/wastewater, plant rhizosphere, and the human gut.

Organ transplantation is a miracle of medical science. While a few people benefit from such transplants, many others are deprived of a second chance at life due to non-availability of donor organs.1 Thus, development of functional organs in a lab using patient’s own cells will be a boon to humankind.

Plant tissue culture (PTC) has been used for over a century, dating back to Haberlandt's invention in 1902. Murashige and Skoog’s development of a commonly used medium composition (MS medium) in 1962, formed the foundation of the majority of plant tissue culture protocols. PTC started to become majorly relevant since the late 1990s, when commercial companies were attempting to develop protocols for delivering commercial traits into economically viable crops.

In April 2022, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) announced the draft of DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill or the DNA Bill. The main goal of this bill was to establish DNA data banks across the nation and DNA laboratories for testing and storing DNA profiles. These would be used for case resolution in crimes to construct an umbrella databank for a variety of applications (primarily as evidence for sexual assault or rape cases).

A polymer is a material made of many repeating macromolecule units referred to as monomers. These monomers can be joined using covalent bonds in any dimensions to give a 3-D, 2-D or 1-D structure. It was coined as a term in 1833 by Berzelius.