Dr. Dhruv Grover from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus at Washington D. C. delivered a guest lecture on Monday at GADVASU, Ludhiana. The title of his talk was “How do neural circuits work: A behavioural dissection of the seneory and motor system in the fruit fly ”. The lecture drew an overwhelming response from the students and faculty of GADVASU. Dr. Grover is also a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute for Information Technology in Delhi. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from the University of Southern California, USA. He presented the results of his experiments under the Fly Olympiad Project aimed at studying the relationship of various genes and targeted modulation of neurons with vision and behavior of fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). He has developed methods and equipment to study visually guided flight behavior to analyze sensory visual system and motion circuit in flies.
Dr. H.S. Sandhu, Dean, College of Veterinary Science in his presidential remarks highlighted the importance of such scientific interactions of students and faculty with eminent scientists from premier institutes of the world. He advised students to inculcate inquisitive thinking and to take interest in interdisciplinary scientific pursuits. Dr. H.M.Saxena, University Liaison Officer thanked Dr. Grover for his thought provoking lecture. He also thanked Dr. Sandhu for providing administrative support and to Dr. JPS Gill, Director, School of Public Health for logistic support.
