27th May, 2020 (4:00 to 6:15 PM)

Speaker I: Prof. Jens Rydell, University of Lund, Sweden
Topic: Bats, Mythology and Conservation in the Current Crisis

About the Speaker: Prof. Jens Rydell is a Bat biologist with 35 years of experience, 150+ high quality research papers, 3840 Citations as of today with 36 RG Score. He is a active Bat Biologist, working in many countries of African Continent, Europe and also working in India with Dr. Sumit Dookia and Mr. Ravi Umadi, Doctoral Student of Department of Biologie II, Biocenter, Ludwig-Maximillians Universitaet, Munich, Germany.

Speaker II: Dr. Abi T. Vanak, Associate Professor, ATREE, Bangaluru
Topic: Zoonosis diseases, Rabies, Kyasanur Forest Disease & role of OneHealth Program

About the Speaker: Dr. Abi T. Vanak is an Associate Professor, and Convener of the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, at ATREE. He is also a Fellow of the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Program. Dr Vanak is an ecologist with broad interests in animal movement ecology, disease ecology, savanna ecosystems and wildlife in human-dominated systems. Subsequent to completing his PhD in the USA and post-doc in South Africa, studying the movement ecology of Indian foxes and domestic dogs, elephants, large African carnivores and savanna ecosystem dynamics, Dr Vanak returned to India in 2012. Since then his research has included projects on the conservation of semi-arid savanna grasslands in peninsular India and the adaptation of meso-carnivores to human-dominated landscapes. Dr Vanak’s interests in disease ecology led to him explore the dynamics of pathogen transmission between domestic animals and native wildlife using the OneHealth framework. He is currently examining the dynamics of rabies in multi-host systems and the role of small and medium mammals as tick hosts in the transmission dynamics of Kyasanur Forest Disease.


Speaker III: Dr. Mukesh Thakur, Scientist C, Zoological Survey of India
Topic: Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 : Status of Current Virus Genomic material and Mutations.

About the Speaker: Dr Mukesh Thakur had PhD from Wildlife Institute of India on Jungle fowl genomics and a Post Doc from University of Padua, Italy. His major interest in conservation genomics and landscape genetics. He also received the awards, DST Young Scientist (2013), DST-INSPIRE Faculty Award (2017), PIFI- fellow Chinese Academy of Sciences (2017), INSA Medal for Young Scientist (2018). He has also served at Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as an Associate Professor. At present, he is serving at Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata as Scientist C and coordination of Wildlife Forensics Cell. Recently, he investigated COVID evolution and spread using phylogenetics approaches.
With 12 years research experience and over 50 publication,RG Score -26, he is a active Evolutionary Biologist.