The seniors at the Young Investigator's meet (L to R): Keith Yamamoto, UCSF; Martin Reddington, HFSF; Vijay Raghavan, NCBS; Bruce Alberts, UCSF; M. K. Bhan, DBT and Anuradha Lohia, Wellcome-DBT. 
Critical observations such as these during a sabbatical at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, in 2008 led Ron Vale from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to steer and spearhead the first 'Young Investigators' meeting'. In its scope and design, the meeting was unprecedented in India. It addressed long-terms questions on how to attract the best scientists from around the world to take up independent positions at upcoming research centres, to strengthen the culture of mentoring and developing peer groups and to enable a new generation of Indian scientists to succeed globally.
The goals were simple, and immediate: make at least one new personal contact, learn about a new scientific technique, identify collaborators in India, leave the meeting with renewed energy and think about how you can contribute to Indian biology. On a long term, this enthusiasm and optimism could lead to new cultures being fostered across all institutions in India.
The meeting happened in the last week of February, as the humid summer seemed to arrive early along the backwaters of Kerala. It wasn't just the buzz generated by 40 energetic young life scientists from India, research posters in hand gathered to meet their peers, exchanging stories about the challenges of setting up their new laboratories. And it wasn't just the obvious excitement of 20 post-doctoral fellows currently working at the best universities around the world, facing the next step in their careers with determination and a little trepidation. It wasn't also just that people determining the future of India's science policy, heads of funding agencies and directors of the country's premier research institutes were sitting at a single table. Indeed, it wasn't even the chance to meet accomplished senior scientists in a truly unique mode, in their role as mentors, looking back at their careers and recalling their own challenges and lucky breaks.
The goal was to build a network of young independent scientists and post-docs, to expose them to the landscape of Indian science, and to equip them with the skills needed to start and run new laboratories, pick research problems and guide students. The meeting was built around interactive panel discussions and poster sessions rather than research talks. The emphasis was to share information, experiences, ask difficult questions and perhaps even figure out solutions to common problems. Unhindered access in a sequestered environment to directors of institutes, secretary to India's Department of Biotechnology, senior and mid-career successful Indian and non-Indian scientists, their own peer group and possible future peers gave all participants a chance to discuss science, their daily challenges and necessary directions in science policy.
There were basic questions such as how to choose a research direction? Martin Raff, Emeritus of the University College of London suggested," When picking a problem, stay out of crowded areas." Not everyone agreed to that. Obaid Siddiqi of NCBS said, "Nobody can teach you how to pick a problem to work on."
What about writing grant proposals? Keith Yamamoto of UCSF said it was worth trying to balance one's scientific goals with what the funding agencies were looking for. Easier said than done? Try assembling colleagues together for some 'feed forward' – a feedback even before you embark on writing the proposal, when there's actually time to incorporate suggestions!
Obaid Sidiqqi of NCBS talking to a post-doc at the meet.
There was exciting and sometimes heated discussion on managing students and extended scientific families of the investigators. Bert de Groot of the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry, Germany cautioned that it was the principal investigator's responsibility to shield students from pressure. Raff was adamant that students should be encouraged to go in whatever direction their research takes them while James Spudich from Stanford University, USA had one simple rule — treat your students with the same respect you expect from them. Common sense, perhaps, but these are rules that scientists have put into practice, rules that have obviously served them well.
Looking at a much bigger picture, Bruce Alberts, ex-president of the National Academies in USA and currently at UCSF, emphasised the transformational role that science policy can play in the long-term landscape of laboratory science. De Groot, now a well established investigator, put it plainly. "I wish I had the chance to attend such a meeting when I was starting up."
For the first ever of its kind, its right to ask — was this meeting a success? Most felt it had exceeded expectations, rising above cynicism and simple prescriptions and striking a note of pragmatic optimism. Building on this momentum, the next YI Meeting is already being planned. Researchers are looking forward to the day when a meeting such as this would touch every biology department and research institute around India, seeding new ideas and putting a truly new, young face to Indian life sciences.
Says one of the participants Aurnab Ghose, a faculty at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune," Establishing a laboratory in a brand new research institute while balancing undergraduate education has its own special challenges. In this meeting, more than prescriptive solutions, issues and ideas were brought to the table and discussed in the light of collective experiences."
Chetana Sachidanandan, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical School, who is considering moving to India to grow scientific roots here, the interaction wiped out the uncertainties accompanying such a move. It reinforced, what she calls, her 'naïve optimism' of making a successful career in India. "I came away from the meeting with an overwhelming sense of possibilities. Young investigators from across the country and from very different institutional set-ups face such remarkably similar problems," she says. As senior Indian scientists stressed on solving these problems from the bottom up rather than top down, the underlying message, she says, was that change is possible but will not be easy.
Saima Aijaz, a faculty at the Special Center for Molecular Medicine inJawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi says she headed back to her lab to tackle problems with a new sense of optimism secure in the knowledge that 'colleagues from across India are there to help and support with resources and expertise'.
