The Central Inter-Disciplinary Research Facility (CIDRF) at the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College Campus, Pillaiyarkuppam organized its 2nd national level workshop on Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) on the 24th and 25th of May 2016 for medical and life sciences postgraduates and faculty. The workshop was attended by 17 participants from various Institutes in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Dr.C.Adithan, Director, CIDRF & Organizing Chair flagged off the workshop with the welcome address and introduced the Scientists of CIDRF who were the instructors for the two days event. Dr Agiesh Kumar, Senior Scientist, and the Organizing Secretary presented the overview of the workshop. The workshop saw two orientation sessions by Scientists of CIDRF: (1) ‘DNA extraction’ by Sam Vijay Kumar J, (2) ‘RNA extraction’ by Dr Veni Subramanyam. The next two hands-on sessions were on: (1) ‘Conventional PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis’ by Dr Benet Bosco Dhas and (2) ‘Real-time PCR’ by Dr AgieshKumar.B. Pre- and post-workshop evaluation tests for the participants on the concepts of PCR were conducted by Dr.N.Mangaiyarkarasi, Emeritus Professor and Dr Pooja Pratheesh, Scientist. Written feedback forms\ were received from participants at the end of the workshop. Dr C. Adithan concluded the workshop with his valedictory remarks and distributed the certificates to the participants. Dr Balanehru Subramanian served as Organizing Co-Chair.
Program evaluation
Evaluation of the program was done based on a questionnaire prepared. The questionnaire comprised course objective, subject assessment, arrangement, coverage, timing, a summary of the workshop, food arrangements, hand-outs and instructors of the program, the usefulness of the subject, facilitatory & hindering factors and general comments.
