INTRODUCTION

Dr. Felix Bast is working at the Centre for Biosciences as Assistant Professor since 2010. He was born in Kerala where he got his B.Sc. with university first rank. He got his M.Sc in 2002 from University of Madras Guindy campus with first rank. He later worked as CSIR-JRF at National Institute of Oceanography, Goa and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay on various research problems including picoplankton diversity and biological desalination. In 2005 he was awarded prestigious Japanese Govt. Monbukagakusho International Ph.D. fellowship, nominated by ministry of Human Resource and Development, Govt. of India and in 2010 he completed his Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Kochi University, Japan. Dr. Felix had been awarded numerous research fellowships including JNCASR-Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship 2001, Indian Academy of Sciences Fellowship-2002, CSIR-JRF with NET-2002, US National Science Foundation-2007 and British Phycological Society-2009.Dr. Felix has visited a number of foreign countries for his research works, including UK, France, the Netherlands, Japan, China, Thailand, USA and Canada . He has published one academic book, six first-author scholarly articles in leading international publications and presented some of his works at Natural History Museum, London in January 2009. In 2012, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India honoured him with prestigious INSPIRE Faculty award. This early career research award gives him five years of funding (2012-17, 7 Lakh per annum) to pursue his work on molecular diversity of marine plants known as seaweeds that help to fight cancer and may lead to development of a low-cost and effective drug.Dr. Felix has made available all the contents of his courses, including presentations, lecture notes, solved question papers, term papers and assignments at his course URL accessible at http://sites.google.com/site/felixbast/

EDUCATION

RESEARCH TRAINING/FELLOWSHIPS

LANGUAGES

Malayalam

Native language

English

Computer based TOEFL (2002) score: 247 (of 300)

Japanese

Intensive Japanese language certificate from Kochi University, Japan

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

University First Rank in B.Sc (Kannur University, Kerala)

Won JNCASR Summer fellowship-2001

Won IAS-Indian Academy of Sciences- summer fellowship 2002

Qualified in CSIR Junior Research Fellow (JRF) with UGC NET-LS 2001

Qualified in GATE 2002 (82.66), GRE 2002 (85), TOEFL 2001 (247/300)

Japanese Govt. International PhD Fellowship 2005:Monbukagakusho (nominated through Ministry

of External Affairs, Govt. of India)

National Science Foundation (USA) Research Fellowship 2007

British Phycological Society Student Bursary Award 2009

Department of Science and Technology / Indian National Science Academy INSPIRE Faculty Award 2012

PUBLICATIONS

(Electronic reprints of publications are accessible at: : http://bit.ly/Reprints )

Academic books

• Bast F (2011)Monostroma: the Jeweled Seaweed for Future (BOOK). LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG, 66121, Saarbrücken, Germany. ISBN: 978-3-8473-2710-3

Scholarly articles

•  Bast F (2011) Taxonomic Keys for the Marine Green Algal Family Monostromataceae. In: Algae: Ecology, Economic Uses and Environmental Impact, Nova Publishers, New York (Accepted)

•  Bast F (2011) Cancer Phylogenetics: Computational Modelling of Tumour Evolution. In:Bioinformatics: Genome Informatics and Computational Biology, Tuteja R (Eds), Nova Publishers, New York (Accepted)

• Bast F & Okuda K (2010) Gametangial Ontogeny in Intertidal Green Alga: Monostromalatissimum (Kützing) Wittrock. International Journal of Plant Reproductive Biology 2 (1)11-15. ISSN 0975-4296

• Bast F, Shimada S, Hiraoka M & Okuda K (2009) Asexual life history by biflagellate zoids in Monostromalatissimum (Ulotrichales). Aquatic Botany 91:213-218. ISSN 0304-3770 Impact Factor: 2.087

• Bast F, Shimada S, Hiraoka M & Okuda K (2009) Seasonality and thallus ontogeny of edible seaweed Monostromalatissimum (Kützing) Wittrock (ChlorophytaMonostromataceae) from Tosa Bay Kochi Japan. Hydrobiologia 630:161-167.
  ISSN: 1573-5117        Impact factor: 1.964

• Bast F, Hiraoka M & Okuda K (2009) Spatiotemporal Sex Ratios of a Dioecious Marine Green Alga: Monostromalatissimum (Kützing) Wittrock. International Journal on Algae 11(2):141-150. ISSN: 1521-9429

Conference proceedings/abstracts

• Book of abstracts, American Association for Cancer Research New Horizons in Cancer Biology International Conference, Dec 13-16, 2011, Delhi, India.

• Book of abstracts, 57th Annual Winter Meeting of the British Phycological Society, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom. Published in ThePhycologist

• Book of abstracts, XIX International Seaweed Symposium, Kobe, Japan.

Other publications

• Bast F, Ca2+ : An Ion of Biological Cybernetics. Reviewed popular science article published online at BBC. 12th March, 2004. Google Scholar Citation index

• Bast F, Hydrogen: A Key to Clean Energy Future? Popular science article published online at BBC, 31st May 2004.

• Taxonomy of Green Algae: A Lab poster. Designed and published online independently.

• Bast F (2009) Haiku, Mainichi National Newspaper (Published on July 20, 2009), Japan

SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS

•  International Algae Summit-2012, International Conference, Feb 21-22, 2012, Delhi, India. (Oral presentation)

•  American Association for Cancer Research New Horizons in Cancer Biology International Conference, Dec 13-16, 2011, Delhi, India. (Poster presentation)

• 57th Winter meeting of the British Phycological Society, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom. January 2009. Supported by student bursary from the BPS (Oral and Poster presentations).

• XIX International Seaweed Symposium, Kobe, Japan, March 2007.
  Supported by Japanese Phycological Society grants.(Poster presentation).

RESEARCH PROJECTS/GRANTS

• Chemical and phylogenetic diversity of seaweeds in Indian Subcontinent. DST-INSPIRE Award (2012-2017; 35 Lakhs)

Brief introduction to this major research project:

Seaweeds are oceanic plants that grow attached to rocks in coastal areas. While India has nearly 7000 km of coast length and ranks among the top among nations with longest costlines in the world, seaweed resources remains unexplored. This project will attempt to catalogue seaweed biodiversity using the latest molecular technique known as “DNA Barcoding”. With the university already purchased latest configuration automatic DNA Sequencer, the project has already begun yielding the results from the first exploration that targeted Indian West Coast in May, 2012. Seaweeds will also be screened for potential anticancer and cytoprotective agentsat the cell culture facility of the university, with the potential of finding an effective treatment strategy for this regional health problem.

Photos from INSPIRE Expedition-May 2012 (Map accessible here)

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

•  Student member, British Phycological Societ (BPS).

• Student member, Phycological Society of America (PSA)..

Last edited on 30-08-2012• An HTML version of this resume with clickable links can be accessible at:http://bit.ly/Felix-CV