About India Section of AOAC INTERNATIONAL

About India Section of AOAC INTERNATIONAL
India Section of AOAC INTERNATIONAL
Welcome to the world of analytical chemistry!

We propagate and celebrate analytical chemistry and support its practitioners in building a better planet!

With over 200 members, we represent the India Section of the AOAC INTERNATIONAL, aiming to haul together distinguished analytical chemists from all over the nation for building the analytical science fraternity. The India Section of the AOAC INTERNATIONAL has been a conduit between the AOAC INTERNATIONAL and the Indian analytical community. As a not-for-profit organization, we pledge to uphold the values and integrity of the AOAC INTERNATIONAL. Following its footsteps, we are committed to serve its members and the community of analytical sciences by providing the tools and processes necessary for community stakeholders to collaborate through consensus building, develop fit-for-purpose methods and services for ensuring quality measurements. Our chief mission is to become a facilitator in the development and harmonization of validated analytical methods within the nation

As an analytical body, we liaise with government, industry and academic institutions, fostering scientific collaboration and innovation. Our scientists are engaged in educating future generations of analytical scientists by organizing workshops, seminars, laboratory trainings, webinars and the section’s annual conference. Our committee members offer advice to governmental bodies on policy making and food safety issues.

In this ever-changing complex world, we are constantly grappling with new analytical challenges, and to deal with such complex problems, our scientific core committee members are attentive towards how to best serve people with solutions. Besides, we promote young talents and new information that lead to the way of the advancement of analytical chemistry. With free educational resources, our mentoring scheme has offered advices to several young researchers so far.

Considering that India is one of the largest lands of socio-cultural diversity, we are committed to celebrating its diversity by the empowerment of a diverse and inclusive membership from across the country. We truly believe that the success of this community solely depends on our capability to nurture the outstanding people, despite their social, cultural or economic background.

History of India Section of AOAC INTERNATIONAL

During the 124th Annual Meeting of The AOAC INTERNATIONAL in the USA in September 2010, Dr. Sumit Sen, a US FDA official and the Past-President of The AOAC Southern California Section, met with the AOAC’s Executive Director, Dr. E. James Bradford along with its other Board of Directors to express his willingness to set up a new section in the Indian subcontinent.

At the inceptive phase, Dr. Sen contacted Dr. Deepa Bhajekar, presently the Director, d technology, to discuss at length their ideas about starting a new section in January, 2011. The AOAC Board of Directors approved the formation of the new India Section of the AOAC INTERNATIONAL in response to the need of analytical infrastructure within the country in December 2011. The Indian Section was founded thereafter with Dr. Bhajekar as its first President and Dr. Kaushik Banerjee (ICAR- National Centre for Grapes) as the President-Elect along with Dr. Sumit Sen (Mentor, USA), Dr. Balasubramanian (Secretary) and Mr. Sunil Kulkarni (Treasurer) and other executive members, who were scientists, academics, corporate officers and entrepreneurs. The Executive members proclaimed that the mission of starting this new Section is to “advance and disseminate the knowledge of analytical sciences”.

In its early year, on April 5, 2012, the inaugural seminar of this section was held in Mumbai, generating an awareness among people, highlighting how it can serve as a unique platform for the analytical industry. In November, 2014, a new Executive Committee was formed, comprising Dr Kaushik Banerjee (President), Dr Ranjan Mitra (President-Elect), Mr. Vishal Arora (Secretary), Mr. Viswaraja Sasikumar (Treasurer) and Mr. Shriram Kulkarni (Member-At-Large).

For the past three years, the Executive Committee has continued to work on our mission of providing the analytical industry with increased knowledge on current topics related to analytical development and technical skill enhancement through seminars, forums, webinars and workshops. With the growing interest of scientists, laboratory personnel and stakeholders, and currently, we are having more than 200 members.

After the remarkable success of the Section’s conference in 2015 in Pune, the Core Executive Committee – Dr Kaushik Banerjee, Dr Ranjan Mitra, Mr Vishal Arora and Dr Saurabh Arora (Treasurer) – plan to feature a unique combination of topics addressing the current analytical need and challenges by renowned speakers from various continents, representing academia, industry, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders. Through its annual conference in 2016 in New Delhi, this Section look forward to reaching wider audiences and are expecting large participation from government, industry, academia, instrument manufacturers, food testing laboratories and philanthropists.

The Executive Committee trust that this Section will continue providing infinite resources and avenues to interact with prominent leaders and mentors in this field and look forward to greatly broadening the global network of scholars and professionals.

Our Activities
Some of our major activities include:

The Section conducts programs in education, public outreach, and media relations. It is active in organizing workshops on pesticide residue analysis, food safety and quality testing, heavy metal analysis in complex food matrices among many others

Our Section has organized an Advanced Food Safety Analytics Master Class Program in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industries (CII)-Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence (FACE) and VIMTA Labs.

Using the global methods (e.g., the AOAC methods), a collaborative study on Vitamin B12 for Indian Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals is in progress.

Free webinars were introduced to disseminate knowledge about new methods in food matrices. For the first time, we have given opportunities to graduate students for featuring their PhD research-in-progress.

In addition to the scientific program, the Section also arranges interim Meetings for its executive memebers for social networking and planning new activities.