TATA INSTITUTE OF FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH

Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai-400 005

February 13, 2009

School of Natural Sciences

Speaker : Prof. Agepati S. Raghavendra

(Department of Plant Sciences, School of Life Sciences,
University of Hyderabad)
Title : Innovative Contributions of Sir Jagadis
Chandra Bose, THE founder of interdisciplinary
research in biology
Date & Time : Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 16:00 hrs.
Venue : Lecture Theatre (AG-66)

Punita Punia
Secretary, NSF
ABSTRACT:

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (JCBose) is an extraordinary physicist turned plant biologist, with concepts
almost a century ahead of his times. After his well-known discovery of short electromagnetic waves,
suitable for radio communication, his attention turned towards the movements and electrical responses in
biological systems, mainly of plants. He utilized his scholarly background in Physics to initiate
experiments to validate physical principles in biological system, particularly of plants. The path-breaking
experiments of JC Bose to measure electrical signals in plants are novel and paved the way for the exciting
field of plant biophysics. Thus, he was the father of Biophysics, long before it became a field. The areas
of his research included not only electrophysiology, physiology of plant movements, mechanisms of plant
response to varieties of stimuli, but also the physiology ascent of sap and photosynthesis. He could
demonstrate that plants had life, and responded to stimuli. The simple experiments of Bose revealed a
high degree of similarity in such responses of plant and animal tissues to external stimuli. The
observations of JC Bose on feelings and movements in plants are among the earliest studies on the
“intelligence” of plants and plant neurobiology. The anomalies recorded by JC Bose in the patterns of plant
growth are confirmed in recent years by much sophisticated computer based image analysis system and
are explained to be due to the oscillatory behavior in plants. The biological significance of seasonal and
diurnal variation in electrophysiology and growth patterns of plants became the subject matter of modern
research in chronobiology. Bose’s work on carbon assimilation in Hydrilla verticillata is a landmark in
photosynthesis research. He made a phenomenal discovery that a unique type of carbon fixation pathway
operated in Hydrilla, different from normal and CAM plants. These findings of Bose appeared anomalous
at his time but are now known to illustrate an instance of non-Kranz single cell type C4-mechanism. His
innovative experiments in photosynthesis, plant physiology, biophysics, and monumental monographs,
made Sir JC Bose an icon of biological and biophysical research in India.