Department of Botany organized International Webinar on

The Botanical Society and P.G. Department of Botany, Khalsa College Amritsar organized “International Webinar on 'Combating viral infections with Botanicals' on 14th December, 2020”.  Dr. Kirandeep Kaur Hundal, Head, P.G Department of Botany extended a warm welcome to the invited speakers and all the attendees. She stressed upon the need to discuss the use of botanical preparations which can act as antiviral drugs . She encouraged the students to actively participate and listen such type of informative lectures.  The webinar was started with the shabad gyan by the college students. After that Dr. Rajbir Singh, organizing secretary of the webinar gave the formal introduction of the speakers. The webinar was divided into two technical sessions. In the first session Dr. Sukhwinder Singh Sohal (Head) Respiratory Translational Research Group, School of Health Sciences, University Of Tasmania, Australia gave a very comprehensive introduction on the topic "Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition In COPD, Understanding and Translation to Early Therapy". He also explained that how the use the herbal medicines could take lead against viral diseases. The second technical session was "Combating Viral Infections with Nutraceutical and Medicinal Plants" by Dr. Kashmir Singh (Chairperson) Department of Biotechnology, Punjab University Chandigarh. The speaker has track record of research on cultivation and antiviral properties of medicinal plants. The speaker enlightened the students that how the use of simple homegrown medicinal plants can act as novel drugs especially in the present COVID-19 pandemic. He motivated the young minds to take the initiative to start cultivation of medicinal plants. Students, teachers and researchers from different colleges and universities attended the webinar. Prof. Kirandeep Kaur Hundal thanked the speakers for sharing their research and knowledge at common front. The certificates were provided online to all the attendees. Dr. Harjinder Singh, Dr. Madhu, Dr. Rajbir Singh, Dr. Prabhjit Kaur, Dr. Harpreet Kaur and Dr. Sushant Sharma were present during the webinar.