Bioscience Fair, a two-day event to increase the awareness of biosciences as a subject, was conducted by the department of Life Sciences and Business Administration of Kumararani Meena Muthiah College of Arts and Science recently.
The fair, which aimed at giving a more holistic view to life sciences, had many highlights including an exhibition, paper presentations and pencil sketching activities to inculcate interest among students.
There were innovative concepts for power generation, filtration and separation and biodegradable plastics, designed by the students themselves.
The exhibits explored different ways of waste management and energy conservation.
The fair was inaugurated by S P Thyagarajan, former vice-chancellor of University of Madras, who made a presentation on nutraceuticals and drug regulation during the event. He touched upon the regulatory and ethical aspects that one needed to look into while creating nutraceuticals. This, he said, included proof of experimentation and a limited toxicity study to see that compounds do not affect living cells.
Thyagarajan said that nutraceuticals will act as a supplementary course for treatment along with mainstream pharmaceutical drugs and added that it was fortunate that there was no patent on nutraceuticals, because if patents concerning molecules were there in nutraceutical preparations, it would cause an increase in the drug price.
Meena Muthiah, secretary and correspondent, Kumararani Meena Muthiah College of Arts and Science, was present with teachers, students and volunteers of the Life Sciences and Business Administration at the inauguration.