Form and Function of Proteins. Historical Background and the Indian Effort in Macromolecular Crystallography

Global efforts in macromolecular crystallography started in the thirties of the last century. However, definitive results began to emerge only in the late fifties and the early sixties. India has a long tradition in crystallography. The country had a head start in theoretical and computational structural biology, thanks to the efforts of G.N. Ramachandran and his colleagues in the fifties and the sixties. However, macromolecular crystallography got off the ground in India only in the eighties, particularly after the Bangalore group received adequate support from the Department of Science and Technology under their Thrust Area Programme. The Bangalore centre was also identified as a national nucleus for the development of the area in the country. Since then work in the area has spread widely and is being carried out by several groups, mainly led by scientists trained at Bangalore or their descendents, in about thirty institutions in India. In addition to the Department of Science and Technology, the effort is now supported by other agencies like the Department of Biotechnology and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The problems addressed by macromolecular crystallographers in India encompass almost all aspects of modern biology. Indian efforts in macromolecular crystallography have also become an important component of the international efforts in the area.

Macromolecular Crystallography in India in the Global Context

The most spectacular applications of crystallography are currently concerned with biological macromolecules like proteins and their assemblies. Macromolecular crystallography originated in England in the thirties of the last century, but definitive results began to appear only around 1960. Since then macromolecular crystallography has grown to become central to modern biology. India has a long tradition in crystallography starting with the work of K. Banerjee in the thirties. In addition to their contributions to crystallography, G.N. Ramachandran and his colleagues gave a head start to India in computational biology, molecular modeling and what we now call bioinformatics. However, attempts to initiate macromolecular crystallography in India started only in the seventies. The work took off the ground after the Department of Science and Technology handsomely supported the group at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1983. The Bangalore group was also recognized as a national nucleus for the development of the area in the country. Since then macromolecular crystallography, practiced in more than 30 institutions in the country, has grown to become an important component of scientific research in India. The articles in this issue provide a flavor of activities in the area in the country. The area is still in an expanding phase and is poised to scale greater heights.

Impacts of modern transitions on thermal comfort in vernacular dwellings in warm-humid climate of Sugganahalli (India)

Sugganahalli, a rural vernacular community in a warm-humid region in South India, is under transition towards adopting modern construction practices. Vernacular local building elements like rubble walls and mud roofs are given way to burnt brick walls and reinforced cement concrete (RCC)/tin roofs. Over 60% of Indian population is rural, and implications of such transitions on thermal comfort and energy in buildings are crucial to understand. Vernacular architecture evolves adopting local resources in response to the local climate adopting passive solar designs. This paper investigates the effectiveness of passive solar elements on the indoor thermal comfort by adopting modern climate-responsive design strategies. Dynamic simulation models validated by measured data have also been adopted to determine the impact of the transition from vernacular to modern material-configurations. Age-old traditional design considerations were found to concur with modern understanding into bio-climatic response and climate-responsiveness. Modern transitions were found to increase the average indoor temperatures in excess of 7 degrees C. Such transformations tend to shift the indoor conditions to a psychrometric zone that is likely to require active air-conditioning. Also, the surveyed thermal sensation votes were found to lie outside the extended thermal comfort boundary for hot developing countries provided by Givoni in the bio-climatic chart.

Graph Modification Problems: A Modern Perspective

We give an overview of recent results and techniques in parameterized algorithms for graph modification problems.