Bangalore :
Three IISc professors have added more feathers to the institute’s cap. Whether for unearthing synthetic bones and cardiovascular patches or providing a breakthrough in cancer treatment, Bikramjit Basu, Dr Sathees Chukkurumbal Raghavan and Vijay Balakrishna Shenoy are among eight eminent scientists who’ve bagged the Swarup Bhatnagar Award for the year 2013.
Dr Sathees Chukkurumbal Raghavan (Biological Science)
Over 20 years of hard work finally paid off for this associate professor in the department of bio-chemistry at IISc. Dr Sathees received the honour for discovering a cancer therapeutic agent and the cause of cancer in human cells.
“I got the award for discovering SCR7. It’s a chemical compound that blocks DNA repair in cancer cells. This accumulates DNA damage inside the cell, causing its death,” explained Dr Sathees, who’s been working on two types of cancer, leukaemia and lymphoma, and the modalities of how cancer cells are generated.
“The basic cause of cancer is chromosomal abnormality and translocation. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy break the DNA inside the cancer cells, causing their death. Our research says if SCR7 is used alongside radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the rate of recovery can be doubled and doses of radiation cut to half.” Said Dr Sathees. Tests have been done only on animals, and human trials could take at least a decade.
Bikramjit Basu (Engineering Sciences)
This engineer bagged the honour for his work in the field of medicine. Research by Bikramjit Basu, 40, associate professor at Materials Research Centre, concerns the heart, nerves and bone disease. Basu has come up with lab-grown synthetic bone, cardiovascular patches and bio-material for damaged nerves and orthopaedic surgeries.
“My work highlights the interface of material science and biological science. The outcome of the research helps in orthopaedic surgeries, neural tissue engineering like nerve repair and cardiovascular implantation, and also expanded our understanding of cell functionalities,” said Basu.
“The polymeric and ceramic materials (bio-material) are non-living patches that can be used in case heart or nerve tissue gets damaged. A part of my research is also based on ‘socket acetabular’, which can be called an advancement in the field of hip replacement surgery,” said Basu.
Vijay Balakrishna Shenoy (physical science)
The era of super computers could end, and quantum computers may be a reality soon.
“Many technological marvels — from supercomputers to phablets – are based on condensed matter physics. I work on its theoretical aspects. There are many open and challenging problems in this area such as understanding systems with high temperature superconductivity, a state where electrical resistance goes to zero! One example can be quantum computers which can solve more difficult problems in a much shorter time as compared to computers of this generation,” says Shenoy.
In the past decade, a traditionally different branch of physics — atomic-molecular-optical physics — has provided new opportunities to simulate condensed matter systems with atoms. This area is called “cold atom quantum emulation”.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Bangalore / TNN / October 01st, 2013