He had completed his high school at the age of nine, earned his BSc degree at 10 and M.Sc at the age of 12. At the age of 21, Tulsi completed his doctorate in Quantum Computing from Indian Institute of Science.

The young professor, who has never studied in a classroom, plans to ask his students how they would want to be taught. “I have never taught in a class. But I believe I can come down to the level of a student and help them understand the subject,” he said. When asked about his future plans, he said “I want to pursue my research and at IIT-B, I will have the leisure to continue my research and one day set up a lab focused on quantum computation in our country.”

Dr. Tulsi had to turn down offers from Waterloo University in Canada and the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER), Bhopal to come and teach at IIT-B.

In 2003, the prestigious Time magazine named him among the world’s seven most gifted youngsters, though he went into a shell after an international delegation called him a fake prodigy in 2001. Tulsi said he is going to write to the Limca Book of Records to include him as the youngest faculty member in the country.

Source: Silicon India

Diwaker Vaish is busy fine-tuning his three humanoid robots that will participate in the event to be hosted by the Federation of International Robosoccer Association (FIRA) from Sep 15-19 in Bangalore.

He is now programming the three soccer robots — a goalkeeper, a defender and an attacker — for the robot soccer tournament.

A Class 12 pass out, Diwaker said: “For the first time, the event will be held in India. I hope my three specially designed soccer robots will play in the tournament. I have finished the physical structure of one robot, I will finish the other two in another week, while programming for all the three would be done simultaneously. I hope my robots will win the world cup as they have unique features.” For this, Diwaker has already built a prototype – Isotope.

With an Atmel processor as brain, 25 brackets forming the skeleton and 16 servos in place of muscles, Isotope can walk, dance and stand on one leg and even dance to bhangra beats!

“With additional high-power servos (they are muscle-like parts that help a robot move like a human being), the newly-developed soccer robots are more stable. They won’t fall even if you push them with force.”

Diwaker, who has taken a break from his studies to follow his passion, say Isotope took seven months to create.

Now, he is confident that he can finish work on the soccer robots by August as he already knows the nuances of robot-making.

Talking about Isotope, he said, “With advanced artificial intelligence techniques, Isotope will be able to take instructions in both Hindi and English.”

But will these skill sets be enough for a robot to take on its rivals on the mini-soccer field?

“No, competing with robotic experts from Korea, Japan, Czech Republic etc is not a joke. My soccer robots are much more advanced and efficient than my first humanoid robot.”

Diwaker is being sponsored by A-Set (Advanced School of Engineering and Technology), a private computer institution in Delhi.

A gadget freak, Diwaker got interested in robotics after his first creation, a racing boat, won the first prize in Quanta in Lucknow in November 2009.

His boat finished the race in 18 seconds and won the competition in which students from 40 countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Russia and the Czech Republic, participated.

Speaking about her son’s skills, Maya Vaish said, “We have spent around Rs.4 lakh for procuring tools and material to build the robot. Initially, his father (Uday Kumar Vaish) who is into computer networking business, was apprehensive. But later we considered it as an investment in our child’s development.”

“Right from childhood, Diwaker has been very creative. When he was in Class 6, he burnt down our refrigerator as he wanted to check how long a candle will remain lit inside the freezer,” she said.

Diwaker studied in Bal Bharati Public school in Rajendra Nagar and scored 72 percent in Class 12. But he feels that the education system in India offers little scope for robotics.

“I learned the basics of robotics from the Internet. In counties like Japan, Korea and the United States, a school student coming up with a robot is very common. But in India only IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) students take up projects on robotics. Awareness on robotics and its possibilities are very few here,” Diwaker said.

Source: Silicon India

She started her career 30 years ago as an entrepreneur, selling eateries from a mobile cart on the Marina beach amidst all odds — battling a failed marriage, coping with her husband, a multiple addict, and taking care of two kids.

Today, she has overcome the hurdles and owns a chain of restaurants.

An entrepreneur by accident

I was always interested in cooking and passionate about trying out new dishes. But, the thought of becoming a business woman never came to my mind at all as I do not come from a business family. Both my parents were government servants.

But my marriage changed everything. Both the families opposed the marriage vehemently as my husband belonged to the Brahmin community; unfortunately my marriage did not work out as my husband was addicted to alcohol, drugs, etc. I could not bring him out of the addiction. As a young woman, I did not know how to cope with this and I was getting beaten up everyday.

Though my father, a very conservative Christian never forgave me, he gave me refuge when I had nowhere to go. I was thrown out with two very small children. It was a question of survival for me. I knew I should either succumb to the burden or fight; I decided to fight my lonely battle.

I did not want to be a burden on my parents. So, to be economically independent, I could only do what I knew and what I liked. I started making pickles, squashes and jams at home. I just took a couple of hundred rupees from my mother. I sold everything I made in one day and that gave me confidence.

I earned a good income. I invested whatever I earned to make more pickles, squashes and jams. It was quite lucrative in the sense, even ten rupees was a blessing for me.

The first step as an entrepreneur

My father’s friend, who was running a school for handicapped children, was handing out mobile carts or kiosks to people who would employ at least two handicapped people. They needed somebody who could run it and I was offered one such cart free. I had to train the handicapped children to make coffee and serve them to customers.

As I lived near the Marina beach, I decided to put the mobile cart at the Anna Square on the Marina beach. I had seen people thronging the beach in the evenings. But I had to make umpteen trips to the Public Works Department and wait for one year to get the permission.

Finally, I started working on June 21, 1982, a day I will never forget. The previous night itself, with the help of the local rickshaw drivers, I had rolled the mobile cart to the beach. It was a small move but thrilling as it was my own and I was going to be a business woman the next day.

While such carts sold only tea and cigarettes, I decided to sell cutlets, samosas, bajjis, fresh juice and coffee and tea. On the first day, I sold only one cup of coffee and that was for fifty paise!

I was very disappointed and came home crying. I told my mother, that I would not like to continue. But my mother consoled me saying, at least you sold one cup of coffee. That’s a good sign. You will do well tomorrow. And, she was adamant that I go the next day also.

The next day, I made sold snacks for Rs 600-700 which was big money for me then! As I started making money, I added ice creams, sandwiches, French fries and juices too. I used to keep thinking of adding more items.

I ran it from 1982 to 2003, and the maximum I made from that mobile cart was Rs 25,000 a day. That was during the bandh days! We used to be open from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. every day, and later, I started opening from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. for the walkers.

I used to personally stand there and sell all the stuff I made. I never felt scared to stand there late at night. My only thought was to prove myself and move ahead.

There was a fire in me that made me believe that I could be successful without anyone’s help. I did not want to be a failure. If you have that fire, nothing in the world can stop you from succeeding.

Offer to run a canteen
On seeing my work at the beach, within a year, the Slum Clearance Board gave me an offer to run the canteen at their office with a proper kitchen. The chairman met me during her morning walk. That is how I got the offer. The canteen was a huge success.

On Wednesdays, it was the public grievance day, so about 3000 people used to come there and I had a roaring business.

I used to get up at 5 a.m. in the morning, make idlis and go to the beach. From 9 a.m. I would be at the canteen. From 3.30 p.m. I would again be at the beach cart and would be there till 11p.m. By then, I had employed people to cook, and clean, and all the cooking was done at the canteen kitchen. My monthly income in those days was around Rs 20,000.

Later, I got an offer to run the Bank of Madurai canteen, I stopped running the canteen at the Slum Clearance Board canteen. At the Bank canteen, I served food to around 300 people daily.

One day, after a fight with my husband who used to come to trouble me often, I boarded a bus and travelled till the last stop. I got down and saw the National Port Management training school run by the Central government.

On the spur of the moment, I told the security guard that I wanted to meet the administrative officer. I met him and told him that I was a caterer and that I heard they were looking for a one.

He said, to my surprise that they were indeed looking for one as they had problems with the current contractor. I still believe it was God who took me there.

I got the offer. I had to serve three meals to about 700 students. They gave us quarters to stay. It was a new life for me. I got into the groove in a day. It was successful from day one, and I took care of the canteen till 1998.

My first weekly payment was Rs 80,000. I felt so elated having seen only hundreds and thousands till then. During those times, I was earning almost a lakh a week.

In those days, I wanted to do everything personally as I felt only then, things would run smoothly. Now I know if I train people well, they will do the work the way you want.

Starting restaurants
My connection with restaurants started in 1998 when I met people from the Sangeetha Restaurant group. They offered me a partnership in one of the units. But my son, Praveen Rajkumar wanted me to start my own restaurant and build a brand of ours.

But destiny played truant with me again. I lost my daughter, Pratibha Sandra and son-in-law road accident, a month after their marriage in 2004. It shattered me, and I withdrew from all that I was doing.

Then my son took over and started the first restaurant ‘Sandeepha’ in my daughter’s memory. It took some time for me to come out of the shock and start helping my son in the business. Now, I am fully involved in the business. The fire to succeed has come back to me now.

Ambulance to help the accident victims

I still cannot get over my daughter’s death as I did all this for my children; to bring them up and give them a good life.

What shocked me was the way the accident victims were treated by the ambulance operators. When they found that all the four in the car were dead, they said they would not carry dead bodies. Finally, somebody carried all the dead bodies in the boot of a car. When I saw the bodies being taken out of the boot, I broke down.

No mother can bear such a scene. That is when I decided to keep an ambulance on that very spot to help people whether the victims are alive or dead. It is in memory of my daughter.

Ficci entrepreneur of the year award
I started my business with just two people. Now, there are 200 people working for me in my restaurants. My lifestyle has changed too. From travelling in a cycle rickshaw, I moved to auto rickshaws and now I have my own car. From 50 paise a day, my revenue has gone up to Rs 2 lakh a day.

The ‘Ficci entrepreneur of the year’ award is the culmination of all the hard work I have put in over the last 30 years. It came as a surprise as this is the first time I have received an award.

Till now, I had no time to think of what I was doing. But the award made me look back and relive the days that passed by. Now, my ambition is to build my Sandeepha brand.

Advice to young entrepreneurs

Do not ever compromise on quality. Never lose your self-confidence. Believe in yourself and the product you are making. Third, always stick to what you know. When you employ people, you should know what you ask them to do.

After he won the National Geographic Bee and punched the air in jubilation, 13-year-old Aadith Moorthy, who lives in Park Harbor, Florida, confessed that he was expecting many more ‘dangerous’ questions.

The one that clinched the title for Aadith was: “The largest city in northern Haiti was renamed following Haiti’s independence from France. What is the present-day name of this city?”

“Cap-Ha tien,”Aadith answered with ease.

Aadith tells Abhishek Mande just what he meant by more difficult questions and how he prepared for the big day:

Going by last year’s questions I was expecting it to be tougher. The final question in the previous competition was: Name the country in which the Timis River flows. The answer is Romania. In contrast this year’s was a simpler question since it (Haiti) was in the news because of the earthquake. So I knew the answer. I have not been one of those kids who knew the capital cities of all countries when they are two or three years old.

As a child I used to travel to many places around the world and would be fascinated by their cultures. My love for geography comes from my travels. Somewhere along the way I heard about the National Geographic Bee competition and decided to give it a shot. Last year I reached the state level but did not win it. I was very upset and sad.

That was where I met my coach Kumar Nandur. He is a speech pathologist but has trained a few kids for the Geographic Bee. Mr Nandur gave me books to read and that was how I started my preparations. But most importantly he taught me to keep my cool and carry on. I realised that there was no point in brooding over my loss.

I started my preparations soon after. For the first four months I read books and learned 20 facts per day. During my breaks I would spend 10 hours preparing for the state competition but during my school days I’d restrict it to about an hour or two. I had set a timetable — I’d spend three days per continent and move on to the next. I also studied all my atlases and every inch on the (world) map.

During my studies, I found Africa the most difficult to remember, primarily because it is a continent that people don’t talk about much and has a lot of developing countries. There are many different cultures and languages that are spoken across international borders.

In fact, the most difficult question in the national final was related to the continent: Tswana is a Bantu language spoken by the largest ethnic group in what landlocked country? I had to think for a while before answering ‘Botswana’.

In contrast, Asia was far simpler to study — partly because I come from there and the names are simpler to pronounce and remember. After I won the state competition I had six weeks to prepare for the nationals. Here I doubled my pace. I started studying 50 facts a day and started reading more books. I was quite confident of winning. But I had a bad start and missed the very first question! This was where I remembered what Mr Nandur taught me. I knew I had to keep my composure and I did. I am the only person who has won the competition despite having missed the first question.

I visit India very often — almost every year — and spend a month-and-a-half to two months there. During my stay, I visit my gurus to learn Carnatic music. I started singing when I was four and my first lessons were learnt in the US. Now I have my teachers in Bangalore from where my family comes. Sometimes I come down; at other times my teachers fly here or otherwise I have phone classes.

I have performed in India as well as in the US. I really enjoy music. Both my parents have been supportive of my decisions and have stood by me during the competitions. My mother Suguna, who is a housewife, used to browse the internet to source information. Dad (Subramaniam Satyamoorthy), who works for Nielsen Catalina Ventures, would get me printouts and highlight things I should be focusing on. He would constantly keep me on my toes by quizzing me all the time. Both have been very cooperative.

Besides geography and music, I like math, mythology, physics and astronomy a lot. During my free time I like stargazing. When I grow up I plan to become a physicist and use the $25,000 scholarship to get into MIT.

Right now though, with the Geo Bee behind me I am focusing on my exams. School term gets over in the next two weeks, after which I will visit India again.

Source: Rediff

Kothari said the project was inspired by ‘a personal frustration at the whole news reading experience’ on mobile devices. The stylish and easy to use news aggregator service was developed in the Launch Pad class, where the budding entrepreneurs are given an opportunity to develop and introduce a product in just ten weeks.

Pulse is a clean and visual news aggregator and the reader takes up to 20 news sources that can be followed and a visual mosaic of the news can be created. The article can be tapped and a clean rendered view of the news story can be presented. The app allows users to see text-only versions of articles, which are basically cleaned-up versions of a news site’s RSS feeds, or to see the full articles as they are presented on the Web. It also lets sharing articles through Twitter and Facebook by passing the individual sharing tools presented by each news site.

News organizations are yet to get accustomed to iPad strategies but are quite hopeful about the success of pulse. “You absolutely do not have to give away something great for free,” said Michael Dearing, a former eBay executive who is a teacher of the Launch Pad class. “If you build something great, people will pay you for it,” added Dearing.

Nearly 15,000 people have downloaded this app and it has generated more than $40,000 in revenue, taking into account Apple’s 30 percent cut. Akshay and Ankit have created a company, Alphonso Labs, and are now working on versions of the app for other devices, as well as talking to potential investors.

Source: Silicon India

The three researchers of Indian-origin were Sanjay Vashee, Radha Krishnakumar and Prashanth P Parmar, who were part of the team led by Craig Venter.

In a scientific breakthrough, Venter’s team have created artificial life by developing the first bacteria cell controlled by a synthetic genome after 15 years of toil.

In the third meeting of Hastings Center workshop examining moral issues in synthetic biology, the J Craig Venter Group announced the creation of the first synthetic bacterial genome.

“This is the first synthetic cell that’s been made,” said lead researcher Craig Venter.

The cell was created from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesiser, starting with information in a computer, said the researchers.

The Hastings Center has been at the forefront of interdisciplinary research into ethical issues in emerging technology.

The new life form, called ‘Synthia’, can pave new remedies in healthcare and and in producing biofuels, said the Daily Mail

The researchers spent 15 years and spent £27.7million to achieve the breakthrough.

However there have also been fears that the discovery has opened many risks — the research, which has been detailed in the journal Science, could be abused to create the ultimate biological weapon and also any mistake could lead to millions being wiped out by a plague, like in the scenes of the Will Smith [ Images ] film I Am Legend, the UK daily said.

Project participants include synthetic biologists, bioethicists, philosophers, and public policy experts.

“Synthetic biology certainly raises deep philosophical and moral questions about the human relationship to nature,” said Gregory Kaebnick, a Hastings Center scholar who is managing the project.

“It’s not clear what the answers to those questions are. If by ‘nature’ we mean the world around us, more or less as we found it, we may well decide that synthetic biology does not really change the human relationship to nature—and may even help us preserve what is left of it,” he added.

Nor is it clear that the questions raised by synthetic biology are new ones.

“We have come up against similar problems in other domains — most notably, in work on nanotechnology and gene transfer technology — but synthetic biology poses them especially sharply and pressingly,” said Thomas H Murray, president of The Hastings Center and the project’s principal investigator.

Source: Rediff

Shetty is a former resident of Bangalore. A close associate of his family said he went to St Joseph’s College in Bangalore and studied cost accounting at Bangalore University.

“I feel privileged to be given this amazing opportunity at a time when the world needs human rights for all more than ever before,” said Shetty, who becomes the first Indian to head the human rights body.

Amnesty said Shetty, with a strong track record in the non-government and inter-government sectors, will lead its 50th anniversary expansion plans.

“We are thrilled that Salil will be joining us and leading Amnesty International as we renew our fight to end injustice — campaigning with those imprisoned because of their ideas, those on death row, those being tortured, and those who have their rights denied because they live in poverty,” said Peter Pack, the chair of Amnesty’s International Executive Committee.

“Salil has a solid track record in mobilizing people, civil society, governments and international organizations in the fight for people’s rights and dignity,” added Pack.
Shetty joined the United Nations in 2003 as director of the Millennium Campaign from ActionAid — an international development organisation. He had joined ActionAid in 1985 and was part of more than 30 programmes in Africa, Asia and across other developing regions.

Source: Times of India

The $3 billion project is expected to be completed by 2018, said Brain Mind Institute of Swiss Federal Institute Director Henry Markram to Financial Express. The project is billed as an attempt to build a computerized copy of a brain – starting with a rat’s brain, and then progressing to a human brain-inside one of the world’s most powerful computers. It is an international project, propelled by Swiss Federal Institute, and involves several countries and ethics monitoring by UN bodies. India is yet to be part of the project.

The immediate purpose is to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations. “The study of rhodent brain has given us a template to build on. This would help in unraveling human brain,” says Markram. “The whole idea is that mental illness, memory and perception triggered by neurons and electric signals could be soon treated with a supercomputer that models all the 1,000,000 million synapses of brain.”

The key finding is that irrespective of gender and race, human brains are basically identical. “We will be able to map the differentiations by nuancing the patterns later. The exciting part is not how different we are but how similar we all are,” says Markram.

Source: SiliconIndia

Away from the expensive piano that sits in the hall of her Mumbai residence though, Chelsea De Souza is a charming young lady, soft-spoken and with dreams in her eyes quite like Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz.

Chelsea will travel to Dorothy’s Kansas this July to attend the International Institute of Young Musicians through a scholarship she earned recently. And if all goes well, the 16-year-old could well find herself in a land of opportunities, those that India cannot offer her.

Indeed in a country where the loud and gaudy Bollywood fare stifles all strains of classical music, this prodigy is something of a misfit. Chelsea, who started playing the piano when she was three years old, hates Bollywood music and has watched “exactly two Hindi films in my life — Fashion and some Hrithik Roshan flick, which I think had Pyaar in its title”. However, Chelsea is not entirely sure if she wants to leave her motherland, not yet at least. Her mother tells us that it’s because she’s “so good in her studies, she wants to pursue her academics and her music simultaneously”.

Last year Chelsea completed her ISCE or the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education with a score of 96.14 percent. She has been a class topper all along. After completing her schooling from Bombay Scottish, she chose to go to Cathedral because “they encourage you to participate in extra-curricular activities”.

Interestingly, it isn’t just academics that Chelsea excels in. She has won numerous elocution and contests, athletics meets and needless to say, has lost track of the whole lot of music competitions in which she participated and won.

Among the prominent ones that she aced is the All India Piano Competition in the age group below 14 years, when she was merely 10. At 13 she was the youngest contestant and runner-up at the All India Piano Competition in an open age group of up to 30 years. She has been to Germany twice on summer music scholarships to the University of Cologne and will be heading back there this summer too.

More recently, in September 2009, she won the advanced division of All India Musiquest Piano Competition in Pune and has now been nominated to represent India at the Kawai Asian Piano Competition in Hong Kong. Chelsea has also passed her LTCL or the Licentiate of the Trinity College of Music, London, an exam we are told is taken by people not younger than 25.

Of course the list of Chelsea’s achievements could go on. But the 16-year-old’s concerns are somewhat more immediate. She has her school examinations and likes to focus on them whenever they’re around the corner. “That’s when the piano rehearsals are reduced to about an hour a day,” she says “During competitions I usually practice for at least five hours each day, which can get difficult because I don’t return from school before 5 pm. I love English and Psychology and would like to major in one or both subjects.”

Back at Cathedral, Chelsea is part of the school’s choir and performs with the various rock and pop bands within the school. When she isn’t playing music, she loves to read books and watch movies just like other kids of her age. Unlike most of her peers though, Chelsea has read “almost all the classics” and devours fantasy novels like there’s no tomorrow. As for movies, she loves comedies among other genres.

She says, “I loved Pirates of the Caribbean because of its amazing script and of course, Johnny Depp. I don’t enjoy a lot of action films, although I did like The Dark Knight. Among my favourites I’d count all three parts of Pirates, August Rush and a whole lot of comedies. I just watched (Jack Black’s) School of Rock and loved it. Somehow I never liked Hindi movies because they’re so melodramatic. There’s no escaping Bollywood music, though I don’t particularly enjoy that either.”

What she does enjoy is a lot of jazz, pop and rock. She continues, “I love Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey in pop, Guns N’ Roses, Coldplay and Dream Theatre amongst the rock bands and a whole lot of jazz pianists. My iPod has a lot of rock and Alicia Keys, though my dad decided that some classical pieces won’t do much harm.”

As it happens, the father is a pianist too and also strums the guitar once in a while. Her mother is also a pianist and drives her around for recitals and rehearsals. Both her parents are supportive of their daughter’s career decision, whatever it might be. “She’s spoilt for choice,” her mother tells us. “If she was not so good in her studies, music would have been her only option. But I guess she wants to take her time and decide. Whatever her choice may be, we’re sure she’ll excel in it.”

Chelsea likes her father, an engineer in the merchant navy, to sing and play the piano for her. She confesses somewhat sheepishly, “My mom tells me that when I was in her womb, he’d sing me a song called ‘Daddy’s gonna buy you a mockingbird‘. Then about a year after I was born and dad was on the ship, mum sang it to me. She tells me that I cried silently. Today I’d probably request him to play (the jazz piece) Misty for me or Careless Whisper by George Michael.”

Leave the piano to her though and chances are that Chelsea would play “Fazil Say’s Paganini Jazz if I was upbeat, orReflections in Water by Debussy because it is slow and impressionistic”. She continues, “I love the music of the Impressionist period as well as the Romantic era. Impressionistic music is very abstract, which is what makes it so enjoyable to listen to.”

While playing and listening to music de-stresses her to a great extent, Chelsea also likes to meditate just before a big show or a contest. “I just sit, don’t speak and try to focus. During such days I take a day off from school so I am not running around. If I am appearing for my school exams I give studies a priority and let the piano take the backseat. I usually like to take one thing at a time and take it to its logical conclusion. That way I don’t have too many things on my plate and can focus on the task at hand.”

It isn’t surprising when she says she cannot entirely relate to the young students who have been taking their lives, but says that the Indian education system does not offer you second chances. “You cannot blame the school or the parents. As kids we need to focus on our studies. I also don’t see how 3 Idiots is contributing to so many suicides. You cannot just follow something because it is shown in a movie. However, the Indian education system can be somewhat cruel. If you don’t do well in the major examinations, there are no second chances. But the key is not to get bogged down by the pressure. Failure is not the end of the world.”

While she admits that she might not have seen big failures in her life, Chelsea says that it is something she is prepared for. “With success comes failure. So I know I will have to face it someday. But like everyone else I too have my share of small failures, during such times I try to learn from them and move on. I believe that is the only thing you can do anyway. It’d also be the very advice I’d give to people of my age. Failure is not the end of the world.”

Chelsea says it helps to have a hobby in order to deal with failure and stress. She continues, “You cannot make studies your entire existence because you’re going to get bored. Having a hobby — whether it is reading or watching movies or even something like surfing the Internet — helps you take your mind away from the mundane.”

Source: Rediff.com

Brahmachari, the director general of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), India’s [ Images ] premier research organisation, says his colleagues at CSIR have achieved a great feat, just like the Lagaan team, without any international exposure or support. “We have now the competence and capacity as anybody else in the world,” Brahmachari adds.

The 57-year-old scientist, who did his doctorate in molecular biophysics and spent most of his career researching the anatomy of human genes, has every reason to be on cloud nine. Last week, his scientists working with the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in New Delhi [ Images ] decoded the genome of a 52-year-old man from Jharkhand after nine weeks of study — a first in the country. The feat has helped India join a select club of countries — the US, UK, Canada [ Images ], Korea and China.

“Genetic sequencing will help in early diagnosis and management of diseases, including cancer. Persons with genetic profiling will get an indication of diseases to come. It is significant because the ability to assemble the genome shows our capability to study the variations in genes and, thus, will revolutionise future disease predictions and treatment methodologies,” the CISR chief says.

Partha P Majumdar, professor and head of Human Genetics at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata [ Images ] says, “Virtually all health conditions have a genetic component. You are 5-10 times more prone to diabetes, if you have a diabetic patient at home. Knowledge of your genetic endowment empowers you to better predict your risk to a common disease.”

Agrees Swati Piramal, the global face of India’s drug research and director of Piramal Healthcare. “It is a great development as genomics has the potential to bring down the cost of healthcare by offering specific drugs by identifying the gene mutation, and can also predict the onset of a disease. Companies can make more accurate drugs for specific populations.”

Simply put, scientists can find precisely what leads to the next damage in one’s cells, predict mutations in the gene and can pinpoint the disease that the person may get or the son/daughter will be prone to. Genomic tools and analysis will help to develop personalised medicine or designer drugs for accurate treatment.

K V Subramaniam, chief executive of Reliance [ Get Quote ] Life Sciences, says personalised medicine using genomics is an emerging field in India and, with the diversity of the population, there are advantages in numbers for all biological studies related to this.

Reliance Life Sciences has set up advanced infrastructure and highly experienced research team to conduct high-end molecular diagnostics and genomic studies.

The firm offers high-end molecular diagnostic tests for a patient, to detect and predict cervical and breast cancers and genetic disorders that increase the risk of developing tumours in glands such as parathyroid, pituitary and pancreas.

Currently, scientists at Reliance Life Sciences are working on decoding the oral cancer genome by analysing the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

“SNPs are variations at a single site in a DNA and 10 million such variations are there in a human genome. The research is to understand the genetic constitution favoring the development of oral cancer in tobacco chewers, lung cancer in tobacco smokers, heart attack in people with high blood pressure and vitiligo — a chronic skin disorder that causes discoloration in patches of skin,” Subramaniam says.

Arun Chandavarkar, chief operating officer of Biocon [ Get Quote ], says such diagnostic tools may be expensive in the current context, but going forward genomics-based disease detection and therapy based on personalised medicine will bring down the overall healthcare cost. Biocon conducts cutting-edge research on the structure of complex proteins to develop innovative drugs.

Genomic research in the public-private sector is also shaping up in the country. The Centre for Genomic Applications (TCGA) in Delhi is the first such partnership that maintains a multipurpose national facility that provides gene-based research services. Today, it has over 200 clients, mostly universities and research institutes across the country. A collaboration between IGBT and Institute of Molecular Medicine promoted by Kolkata-based Chatterjee Group, TCGA excels in the area of gene sequencing, genotyping, gene expression and proteomics or the large-scale study of the structures and functions of proteins.

The institute is gearing up to offer genomic services to the industry and readying for (Good Laboratory Practices) accreditation for its facilities, says K Narayanaswami, vice president, TCGA.

The opportunities before the institute could be few today, but are going to grow in the coming days. “There are clinical studies in genomics and proteomics. For instance, biomarkers can be used in clinical studies to analyse the safety and efficacy of a medicine in a patient,” he says. In medicine, a biomarker is a term used to refer to a protein measured in blood whose concentration reflects the severity or presence of some disease.

Similarly, genomics and proteomics data are being sought along with clinical trial data for many of the latest drug approvals by US drug regulatory agency FDA. TCGA hopes to service the multinational drug firms that are undergoing clinical trials in the country by providing such data.

Source: Rediff