Meeting of Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) at T John College
In the field of education in life sciences, knowledge of the basic principles and information about new techniques is insufficient if not supplemented with on hands exposure of research. Realizing this fact, the Department of Biotechnology, T. John College has initiated research projects for final year MSc Biotechnology students. Besides this, the department has been recognized as a Research and Development Centre by the Bangalore University. Thus, the college can now admit students for PhD programme as well. With these developments, it was important to have an Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) in the organization to review research projects which is functional from today, said Dr. Bini Toms the Vice Principal of the college who is also the member secretary of the IEC. The T John College, offering courses in Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Pharmacy and Nursing, is one of the pioneers among academic institutions in Bangalore to set up an IEC, which is guided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). In the meeting conducted on 28-03-2009 at 3:00 pm in the college campus, the Chairperson of the committee, Ms. Bindu Sharma was confident that the activities of the IEC would go a long way in ensuring the ethical conducting of life science research in Bangalore. The other members of the committee, Rev.(Fr.) John Iype, Mr. B.S. Kumar, Dr. Nilanjana Basu, Dr. Sonia Chacko and Ms. Subha C. C. were also present and critically reviewed research projects.