FCS 2018

The FCS 20XX series of workshops were conceived as a unique way to teach and provide hands-on training on the most complex modern instrumentations in the area of Fluorescence and Raman Spectroscopy to the practicing scientists and Ph.D. students in India. The original workshop was started with funding from the Govt. of India (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) in 2009, through a grant to Prof. Sudipta Maiti, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India. Till 2012, this workshop was supported by this grant. There was a tremendous positive response from the community, and a need was felt by the community to continue the series beyond the Government sponsored period. From 2013 onwards, the workshop was self-supported (with sponsorships from many industry bodies), and organized through a newly formed society (Fluorescence Society, www.florescenceindia.org)) and also with help from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (www.tifr.res.in), and a local host institute. The goal of the society was not only to continue the series, but also to expand the activities by holding smaller workshops, and providing awards to students for enabling them to present their work at various meeting in India and abroad. In 2013, the workshop was held in Bangaore, in the premises of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) during November 24-28. The local organizers were Prof. Chandrabhas Narayana (JNCASR) and Prof. Jaydeep Basu (IISc Bangalore). FCS-2013 was intended to focus on in-depth theoretical training and hands-on exploration of emerging techniques in fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy for biology and material science. Apart from research and didactic talks, satellite sessions provided hands-on training on the construction of confocal and total-internal-reflection microscope from generic parts. The confocal microscope construction was overseen by Prof. J. Balalji (IISc Bangalore) and the total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy construction was overseen by Prof. Rahul Roy, IISc Bangalore. In 2014, the workshop was held in Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, PUNE (IISER Pune) during December 15 – 22. The local organizers were Profs. Shivaprasad Patil, G. V. Pavan Kumar and Mrinalini Puranik. The workshop expanded to include hands-on training on techniques such as Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Raman Spectroscopy. The standard modules on fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and time resolved fluorescence spectroscopy were also taught. AFM training was overseen by Prof. Patil, and Raman was overseen by Prof. Puranik. In 2015, there was a small scientific meeting on Spectroscopy and Dynamics (Structure and Dynamics of Biomolecular Complexes) organized by the Fluorescence Society at TIFR, Mumbai (May 23, 2015), which was a new event, as it was not in the series of FCS 20XX meetings. This followed the mandate of expanding our workshops to cover broader but related themes. In 2016, The Society organized two events together. One was the FCS 2016, and another is a major international conference, under the aegis of the International Commission for Optics. Together, the event was known as the Optics Within Life Sciences conference (OWLS 2016, website: owls2016.org). This was held in TIFR, Mumbai (first part), and IIT Bombay (latter part) during 16-19 March, 2016. TIFR and IIT Bombay were co-organizers with Fluorescence Society. Sudipta Maiti, Jyotishman Dasgupta, ASR Koti and Ravindra Venkatramani were the organizers. FCS 2016 workshop took place during three days preceding the conference (i.e. March 13-15, 2016). In 2017, the FCS 2017 has just been concluded in IIT Guwahati (December 17-21, 2017). Prof. R. Swaminathan (IIT Guwahati) and Prof. Sudipta Maiti (TIFR) were the conveners for this event. TIFR and IIT Guwahati helped Fluorescence Society organize this event. There were hands-on sessions on Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Time correlated single photon counting, and Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence microscopy. The intention was to give the students and faculty from the North East a bigger share of the total participation. About 40% of the students and about 20% of the faculty were from institutes in the North-Eastern region.