Category Archives: Uncategorized

Science fiction comes alive as Indian startup grows human liver in lab

January 22, 2016Amazing Feats, Science & Technology, Uncategorized, World OpinionAbdullah Chand, Dr, Dr.Abdullah Chand, Senior Scientistmpositiveone@gmail.com

Liver team at Pandorum Technologies: Dr. Abdullah Chand, senior scientist (left); Arun Chandru, co-founder and managing director (centre); and Dr. Sivarajan T., senior scientist / @ABHINAV_MAURYA

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

Pandorum Technologies, a Bengaluru-based biotech startup, has developed an artificial tissue that performs the functions of the human liver.

Pandorum said these 3D printed living tissues made of human cells would enable affordable medical research with reduced dependence on animal and human trials. It will also eventually lead to full scale transplantable organs.

Arun Chandru, 30-year-old co-founder of Pandorum, said liver toxicity and drug metabolism are the key hurdles, and contributors to failed human trials.

Pandorum’s 3D bio-printed mini-livers that mimic the human liver will serve as test platforms for discovery and development of drugs and vaccines. The firm said these drugs would have better efficacy, less side-effects and be developed at lower costs.

“We developed everything here in India,” said Mr. Chandru. “We can grow thousands of these tissues in the laboratory and test the efficacy of drugs on them for diseases including cancer.”

He said large pharma companies on an average spend about $10 billion (Rs. 66,290 crore) and 10 years on research and development to get a single new drug to the market.

Tuhin Bhowmick (34), another co-founder of Pandorum, said development of artificial organs has numerous clinical uses. The cell-based miniature organs can be used to develop bio-artificial liver support systems for preserving life in patients who have developed liver failure.

“In the near future, such bio-printed organs will address the acute shortage of human organs available for surgical transplantation,” said Dr. Bhowmick, who holds a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science.

Pandorum was founded by a group of friends in 2011 who were pursuing their higher studies at IISc. They came together to work on the development of artificial human organs after winning a business competition.

Surviving initially on money from friends and family, the team approached the Department of Biotechnology with their vision. The company was awarded funding support by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council in 2012. The same year, the company got incubated by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms in Bengaluru.

Mr. Chandru said they created the innovation with a funding of about Rs. 1 crore, more than half of which came from the government.

Scientists and startups across the globe are growing artificial organs made of human cells to better study diseases and help test drugs. A team of researchers led by Hebrew University professor Eduardo Mitrani is growing pancreas in a petri dish to better regulate blood sugar in diabetic patients.

The global artificial organ and bionics market is expected to reach $38.75 billion (Rs 2.5 lakh crore) by 2020 at an estimated CAGR of 9.3% from 2014 to 2020, according to a study by Grand View Research.

Pandorum’s ultimate aim is to make personalised human organs such as lungs, liver, kidney and pancreas on demand, according to Mr. Chandru.

Pandorum’s innovation takes the area of making artificial organs to the next level. Bengaluru-based bioinformatics firm Strand Life Sciences founded by IISc. professors had earlier developed a virtual liver that mimics the functions of liver through software simulation. It is a predictive method that integrates data and insights for deeper understanding of the impact of a drug on the liver. The platform can predict the toxicity of several known drugs and toxins and explain the mechanism.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech / by Peerzada Abrar / Bengaluru – December 23rd, 2015

Sheik Ali gets first Kalburgi award

January 21, 2016Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Leaders, Uncategorizedmpositiveone@gmail.com

KARNATAKA :

The Kannada Book Authority (KBA) has instituted the Dr. M.M. Kalburgi Award, which carries a cash prize of Rs. 75,000 and citation, for writers in humanities. This year’s award, in memory of the renowned scholar, has been conferred on historian B. Sheik Ali.

Announcing the awards, KBA chairperson Banjagere Jayaprakash said Prof. Sheik Ali served as Vice-Chancellor of the Mangalore and Goa universities and was responsible for the emergence of a number of History scholars.

Research work

A major share of his research work relates to the period of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Prof. Sheik Ali has around 40 major works to his credit, including eight in Urdu.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Karnataka / by Muralidhara Khajane / Bengaluru – January 20th, 2016

How this Fijian ‘girmitiya’ found his India home

January 21, 2016Community Involvement / Social Issues, Uncategorizedmpositiveone@gmail.com

Lucknow, UTTAR PRADESH :

Lucknow :

His life’s story is the stuff films are made of.

And though Satish Rai’s own story remains untold – until right now – the Sydney-based documentary filmmaker makes do with telling the tales of others like him, who set out in search of their roots, and stumbled upon cousins and family they never knew existed.

For the uninitiated, Rai is the descendant of girmitiyas – indentured Indian labourers who travelled to Fiji and Caribbean Islands to work on sugar plantations in the early 19th century, upon signing an “agreement” – distorted eventually to be known as ‘girmit’ – with the British Government that promised them to return to India after they completed the term of their contractual agreement for work in Fiji and the Caribbean Islands.

Many contracts were reneged upon, and only a few could return home. And for those like Satish Rai, the real homecoming could only happen nearly a century after his family first left the Indian shores.

Rai’s first visit to India was in 1994 – to Basti district – where his cousins were settled.

A brush with a local rickshaw puller gave him his first brush with his caste – and his roots. “He told me I am a Bhumihar Brahmin. And I didn’t know what that meant,” Rai said.

The first trip yielded little ground.

After two more visits, one in 1995 when a Brahmin priest led him on a wild goose chase, and a second in 2001 when he accompanied a cousin on her quest to find her family, Rai’s own story saw mild progress.

He said, “During that time in Basti, there was a man who helped us and took us to Balrampur. He made me meet some people. Then, three months later, I got an email from him telling me my family had been traced.

In 2004, I went back to Balrampur.” And here’s the twist in Rai’s tale. Satish Rai met his cousin, thrice removed, a man they knew by the name of Naeem Rai. “This was a Muslim name. And I already knew my grandmother was a Hindu. So I knew it couldn’t be the right family,” Rai said.

Whether it was curiosity or sheer desperation that drove him 15km into Balrampur’s belly is unclear. But Rai was on his way the next morning, looking to dig for, and to find his roots. “The first time I saw them, I felt the connection. The resemblance was uncanny,” he said. But how did it happen? After the initial rush of emotion, the mystery unravelled.

Rai’s grandmother was married to a Rai Bahadur, a dominating, violent man, he said. And after suffering many years of domestic violence and abuse, she walked out on the Rai Bahadur. Staying away from the powerful landlord within the village would have been impossible, and Rai’s grandmother took the next best available option; she boarded the ship to Fiji with Rai’s grandfather, a man headed for greener pastures in the faraway lands. When the irate Rai Bahadur found out about her escape, though, he did the only thing that remained in his power to do: issue a diktat that disallowed all Hindu families in the area to wed.

“My grandmother’s cousin at that time had four children. And to escape the bizarre diktat, they all converted to Islam. The family name of Rai, however, stuck.”

For Satish Rai, the family name served as the final missing piece in his quest to find his family. A century after his grandmother boarded that ship to Fiji, Satish hugged his cousin Naeem and celebrated his homecoming.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / by Swati Mathur / TNN / January 17th, 2016

I will remove politics from education, if I become Minister, says Bengal headmaster

January 21, 2016Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Education, Uncategorizedmpositiveone@gmail.com

Murshidabad, WEST BENGAL :

“I will remove politics from education, if I become the Minister for Education,” said Babar Ali, who is said to be youngest headmaster in the world, here on Monday.

Mr. Ali, who runs a free-school at Murshidabad in West Bengal for poor students, was participating in an interactive session with the students of BGS PU College here.

During the interactive session, one of the students asked Mr. Ali what he would like to do if he were to become a Minister for Education. Welcoming the question with a smile, Mr. Ali said, “First thing I want to do is to remove politics from educational sector. Nowadays, if a person wants to get appointed as a teacher in a primary school in my State, he or she does not require merit. The applicant should have political influence and money,” he said.

At the college level, students were involved in activities of various unions that were affiliated to different political parties. “Intervention of politics dilutes the essence of education. The second area I will stress on will be to make the teachers responsible for the growth of their students,” he said.

Medium of isntruction

To another question on the medium of instruction in primary schools, Mr. Ali said that children should be taught in their mother tongue. “In West Bengal, children should be taught in Bengali and similarly, in Karnataka the medium of instruction should be Kannada. Children understand the lessons better if they are taught in their mother tongue. I have understood this through my experience,” he said.

In response to another question, Mr. Ali said that all government officials should send their children to government schools so that government schools could improve.

G. Chandrashekhar, principal of the college, told The Hindu, “We are all impressed by Mr. Ali’s achievements. At a young age, he started his own school and has been teaching poor students for free. For students, it is a rare experience to meet such a great person.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Karnataka / by Staff Correspondent / Hassan – January 19th, 2016

Seer seeks stronger ties between Hindus, Muslims

January 20, 2016Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, Uncategorizedmpositiveone@gmail.com

People donating blood at the camp organised by the Pejawar Blood Donating Team and the District Muslim Paryaya Souharda Samiti in Udupi on Sunday.

Udupi, KARNATAKA :

Blood donation camp organized by Pejawar Blood Donating Team, District Muslim Paryaya Souharda Samiti

A large number of people participated in the voluntary blood donation camp organised by the Pejawar Blood Donating team and Udupi District Muslim Paryaya Souharda Samiti on the SMSP Sanskrit College premises here on Sunday.

The camp had been organised as a mark of respect to Vishwesha Tirtha Swami of Pejawar Mutt, who will be ascending the Paryayat Peetha for a record fifth time on Monday.

Inaugurating the camp, Vishwesha Tirtha Swami of Pejawar Mutt said that the bonds between the Hindu and Muslim communities should become stronger.

The Muslim community had fully co-operated in the run up to his fifth Paryaya, he said.

Members of the District Muslim Paryaya Souharda Samiti had supplied buttermilk to his devotees on his “Pura Pravesha” (entry to the city) on January 4.

The samiti had also donated foodgrains and vegetables as “horekanike” a few days ago.

Now, they had organised a blood donation camp on the eve of Paryaya. This showed their harmonious nature.

“The spirit of cooperation between Hindus and Muslims should increase. This should become a model to the country” he said.

He recalled that his preceptor’s guru, that is his guru’s guru, Vishwajna Tirtha, had accepted ‘horekanike’ from the philanthropist Haji Abdullah Saheb, also the founder of Corporation Bank, during his Paryaya in 1904.

Haji Abubakar Parkala, president of the samiti, Mohammed Arif, secretary, and others were present.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Udupi – January 18th, 2016

Chennai floods: 14 heroes honoured

January 19, 2016Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, Uncategorizedmpositiveone@gmail.com

Chennai, TAMIL NADU :

Chennai :

They have no cutouts in cinema theatres. They have no big fan following. They led a simple life just like anybody else until the rain gods lashed their fury on Chennai in December.

They rose to the occasion. They saved lives and brought smiles to many others. “We had to make a choice. Whether to sit at home or get out there and save people,” they said. They then became real heroes.

On Monday, 14 people, who volunteered in flood relief work and did a heroic job, were honoured with awards at the Adding Smiles Ambassador Awards 2016 organised by Adding Smiles Foundation.

“We were doing our duty to help someone who is in need,” said Blue Cross general manager Dawn Williams, one of the awardees, in a video on the awardees.

All the 14 volunteers, including Peter Van Geit, Chennai Trekking Club founder and senior citizens of Anandam Homes, were presented with ‘Real Hero Awards’.

Awards were also given to celebrities, who were active during flood relief. The team ‘Mana Madras Kosam’ with Telugu film actors including Navdeep, Kajal Agarwal and Samantha , Sathyam Cinemas and Tamil actor Parthepan were presented awards.

“I am doing whatever little I can do. I have changed myself. As you grow older, you get fearless and want to do things before you go away,” the award winning composer said.

Activist and founder of NGO Prajwala Sunitha Krishnan, team from National Award winning Tamil film Kaaka Muttai, former RBI governor C Rangarajan, national paralympic swimming champion Madhavi Latha, founder and dean of Great Lakes Institute of Management Prof Bala V Balachandran, acid attack survivor Soniya Choudhary were some of the awardees in the ‘ambassador awards’ category.

The highlight of the evening was music composer AR Rahman, who was one of the awardees in ‘Adding Smiles Ambassador Awards’ category. The category included people, who have come the hard way to live a dream and spread smiles in the life of others by way of help.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Chennai / by V. Tejonmayan, TNN / January 19th, 2016