It was that time of the year again when everyone around was talking about it, waiting for it, preparing for it, asking each other about it – the time for the programme advisory committee meeting (PAC). The new entrants were curious to unravel the mystery around the PAC. The actual PAC is always preceded by months of vigorous work at the lab with long hours spent generating, refining and plotting data, which reaches a crescendo in the weeks preceding the meeting itself.

It was deep into dusk that I was sipping my daily dose of caffeine and admiring what lay before my eyes – a glabrous driveway meandering through the infant ridge of the Aravallis. Welcome to this city within a city, the new campus of Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB) in Faridabad. The campus, home to the NCR Biotech Science Cluster which also includes the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI),presently occupies 40 acres of the 200 acre expanse of land in the lap of nature.

Dr. Deepak T. Nair, Associate Professor at the Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB), has been awarded the National Bioscience Award for Career Development 2014. The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, awards this prize to young Indian scientists below 45 years of age to recognize ground breaking research contributions in basic and applied research. Dr. Nair has been felicitated for his contributions towards understanding both normal and error-prone replication of genetic material in bacteria and viruses.