The XVIII BRSI convention and the International Conference on Biotechnology for Resource Efficiency, Energy, Environment, Chemicals, and Health (BRE3CH2021) was jointly organized by the CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India and the Biotech Research Society, India (BRSI) in association with the International Bioprocessing Association, France; the Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (CEES)-India; CDC Jaipur and International Solid Waste Association (India chapter). The event was hosted by CSIR-IIP, Dehradun. Dr. Anjan Ray, Director, CSIR-IIP, Dehradun was the Patron of the event. Prof Sudhir Sopory, President of the BRSI was the conference chair, and Professor Ashok Pandey, Distinguished Scientist, CSIR-IITR was the conference General Chair and Prof Huu Hao Ngo, University of Technology Sydney, Australia; Prof Claude Gilles Dussap, Universite Clermont Auvergne, France and Prof Samir Khanal, University of Hawaii, USA were the conference international chairs. Professor Sunil K Khare of IIT Delhi, and Dr. Vivek Agrawal, CMD, CDC Jaipur were the conference Co-chairs. Dr. Thallada Bhaskar of CSIR-IIP was the Chairman of, Local Organizing Committee. Dr. Debashish Ghosh, CSIR-IIP was the convenor of the conference. Dr. Binod Parameswaran, CoE, BRSI, and Pr. Sc. CSIR-NIIST, Dr. Vivekanand, MNIT Jaipur, Dr. Bhavya B Krishna, Sr. Sc., CSIR-IIP, and Professor Kamlesh Chaure, AKS University, Satna were the co-convenors of the conference.
The conference was actively supported by NIT, Srinagar, Uttarakhand; ICWM (Indian Chapter); AKS University, Satna; AFSTI. Biotech Express was the media partner. Several academic journals, namely, Bioresource Technology, Bioresource Technology Reports, Systems Microbiology & Biomanufacturing, Bioenergy Research, Journal of Food Science and Technology, Indian Journal of Experimental Biology and Journal of Energy and Energy and Environmental Sustainability will bring out special issues based on the presentations made in the conference.
BRE3CH2021 was conceptualized to provide a platform to bring the stakeholders, including the researchers, policy planners, and industry personnel to discuss and share the thoughts for future projects by collaboration in the area of bioenergy/biofuels/biotechnology & microbiology, etc. This International conference focused on recent developments in the frontier areas of biotechnology/biofuels/biochemicals and brought together scientists, engineers, and other experts from across the world to deliberate on global developments in the field of biotechnology, covering industrial, agricultural, environmental, interdisciplinary biotechnology. The theme of the conference was divided into seven subthemes, and all deliberations were categorized under them.
The conference was opened on 1st December 2021 at 1630 h IST in Dr BR Ambedkar International Training Center at CSIR-IIP, and Drs. Thallada Bhaskar and Debashish Ghosh gave a glimpse of the technical details and organization of the conference in their opening remarks. In this conference, there were 12 plenary talks, 104 invited talks, 10 short orals, and 269 flash talks and posters, which were deliberated in four parallel sessions from 2nd to 4th December 2021. Prof. Sudhir K Sopory, the president of BRSI welcomed all the delegates, which included about 300 participating virtually from 33 countries and about 100 from India attending physically. Dr. Anjan Ray, Director, CSIR-IIP and Professor Huu Hao Ngo, the conference international chair & President IBA welcomed the delegates. The guest of Honour, Professor Tej Pal Singh inspired the gathering through his motivating talk. Afterward, Professor Ashok Pandey, Distinguished Scientist, CSIR-IITR, and conference General Chair addressed the gathering. This was followed by the electronic release of the BRSI Year Book and BRE3CH2021 Abstract book.
The star attraction of the opening session was the BRSI awards function, in which the names of the winners of the annual awards of BRSI for the year 2020-2021 were announced and were felicitated. Dr. P Binod, COE, BRSI conducted the award ceremony as Master of the ceremony. Following is the list of awards winners.
After the awards function, there were three lectures by the awardees. The first talk was by Dr. Saurabh Saran, Pr. Sc., CSIR-IIIM, Jammu (Industrial Medal Award Winner). The second lecture was given by Woman Scientist Award Winner, Prof. Shilpi Sharma, IIT Delhi; and the third lecture was given by Dr. Akansha Singh, of CSIR-CIMAP (Young Scientist Award Winner).
In the following two and half days, in four parallel sessions, the delegates witnessed 30 minutes plenary lectures (12 talks), 104 Invited talks (20 minutes each), 104 short orals (10 minutes each), and 269 flash talk and posters (4 minutes each).
The on-site and virtual management of the scientific program of the conference was moderated by Drs. Bhavya B Krishna, and Vinod Kumar (Hall A); Sunita Virjani, and Sindhu R (Hall B); Vivekanand, and Dharmendra Tripathi (Hall C); Kamlesh Choure, and Archana Tiwari (Hall D). The poster sessions were moderated by Drs. Rakesh K Mishra, Vikash Kaushal, and Arvind Madhavan.
During BRE3CH2021, there was no physical presentation of posters. All presenters submitted their e-posters on the BRE3CH2021 website (Authors’ self-dashboard in the BRE3CH2021 portal). The posters were evaluated online; all the poster presenters also presented their work under Rapid presentations (5-slides in 3-minutes and 1 minute Q&A). All the short orals and Rapid presentations & posters were evaluated by the juries for selecting BEST PAPERS under different scientific themes to give awards as BEST ORAL PRESENTATION and BEST RAPID PRESENTATION & POSTER (RPP), which were sponsored by the (i) Khanal Foundation (a certificate and cash of Rs 2500 to each winner), (ii) Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability- India, comprising a certificate and a book published by Elsevier, (iii) Taylor & Francis (a certificate and a book published by T&F) and BRSI (a certificate).
The closing/valedictory session was held on 4th December 2021 at 1315 h IST in which Best Paper Awards were conferred. Also, the venue for the XIX Convention of the BRSI was announced by Prof Sunil Khare, Vice-President of BRSI which was Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, India to be held on December 7-11 December 2022. Professor Latha Rangan will be the convenor of the event and Professor Kaustubha Mohanty co-convener.
The BRE3CH2021 was organized under the hybrid mode, following full safety and precautions protocols
