Dear Colleagues,

We have great pleasure in drawing your attention to the XVIII Annual Conference of The Physiological Society of India to be held at the Department of Physiology, Presidency College, Kolkata from 8 – 10^th December, 2006.

The Physiological Society of India (PSI) is one of the oldest scientific organizations of the country, which was established in the year 1934. Customarily, in association with different academic institutes from all over India, the PSI has been organizing Annual Conference since 1989 with an objective to form a common platform where members of Human Physiology fraternity can exchange their scientific views and experiences through technical, panel and interactive sessions.

To-day, by any yardstick, the problems of Human Physiology as a basic science are enormous, and we need collective wisdom and concerted effort to deliver good for the cause of the subject. Furthermore, against a backdrop of vast advancement in the different fields of life sciences, particularly in the applied domain of molecular biology, biotechnology and genomic research, we have been facing per se one of the most toughest challenges in the form of identity crisis as present generation of students of this country do not feel enough motivated in studying Human Physiology as a basic life science subject. It is in this perspective, we wish to make the XVIII Annual Conference of the PSI an ideal platform to share our common concern on this contemporary issue and deliberate on the theme “The importance of Human Physiology as a basic life science subject has never been truly assessed in India”.

We invite you to participate in this conference, and have been looking forward to meet you in December 2006.

With personal regards and warm wishes,

Dr. Chandan Mitra

Organizing Secretary

XVIII Annual Conference of the Physiological Society of India