Interviews of September 2016

3.9.2016:

Prof. Gouriprasanna Roy:

Asst. Professor at Shiv Nadar Univ, Delhi. Working on detoxification of heavy metals - like mercury, lead, arsenic, copper. Heavy metals act like soft acids. Mercury damages enzymes and proteins. Organic or methyl mercury is highly toxic. Methyl mercury cysteine is neuro-toxic. Body has several sulphur-containing proteins/thiols and heavy metals bind to these causing disruption. Mercury is a naturally abundant element. Mercury sulphide, mercury selenide more stable and slightly less toxic. Burning fossil fuels releases heavy metals like mercury and lead. Blood, nail and hair of people living near mining areas found to have high levels of heavy metals.

Current research work - ways to convert/recycle volatile mercury to insoluble mercury sulphide or mercury selenide and reduce synthesis of the more toxic and soluble methyl mercury.

Says that during his school days he was more interested in sports (football) than in studies. Obtained Honours degree in Chemistry from Calcutta. At IISc Bangalore, worked on anti-thyroid drugs for hyperthyroidism, drugs with less side-effects than existing drugs for this disorder. Completed PhD in 2007. Post-doctoral research on T-cells and their role in (treatment of??) diseases like multiple sclerosis, diabetes. Regulatory T-cells and effective T-cells. Effector T-cells may sometimes cause auto-immune diseases - researching on ways to make regulatory T cells help prevent effector T cells from causing auto-immune diseases.

Chemistry is an important part of life. Autism is a result of genetic and environment of factors. Autism caused by complex factors - not just environmental, but substantial correlation between heavy metal exposure and autism.

Currently there is no drug to treat heavy metal toxicity. Wants to discover/develop drugs to treat heavy metal toxicity.

10.9.2016:

Prof. Vd. (Vaid) Kartar Singh Dhiman:

Director General, CCSRAS (Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences), a council under ministry of AYUSH. Hails from a remove village in Himachal Pradesh. Authored several research papers, especially on (Ayurvedic treatment for?) eye diseases. Says that his father's last wish was that one of his sons should be a doctor. Says his father's illness impelled him to become a doctor. His father's doctor visited the village once a week, coming from a place in Punjab 70km away. Didn't have any idea of MBBS, BMS etc. for a long time, but worked hard to become a doctor. Post-graduation in ophthalmology from Gujarat (Medical?) University. Started as a medical practitioner but inspired by Ayurvedic texts which he believes were based on extensive research and experience, decided to shift towards research and evidence-based medicine. Started with a small experiment on dry eye and proved that dry eye could be treated using an Ayurvedic treatment written in 5th or 6th century, based on controlling tear evaporation. Another research project on treatment of glaucoma - mentions there is one type of glaucoma called normo-tensive glaucoma where pressure is normal but nerve damage still occurs. Will start a new division for eye research in Lucknow. 3rd disease which he says is considered untreatable by both Ayurveda and modern medical science is retinitis pigmentosa. However, Ayurveda says the progression of the disease can be arrested if treatment is started early - so if patient is diagnosed with this condition, please start on Ayurveda instead of coming to Ayurveda only after modern therapy has failed! CCRAS standardizes ingredients of Ayurvedic drugs. Oversees pre-clinical research. CCRAS also has a project to digitize ancient Indian medical manuscripts. Aims to modernize Ayurveda - ensuring that standard operational procedures are used in drug preparation and that the safety of these preparations are well analyzed before clinical phase; this also removes scepticism that Ayurvedic drugs may be unsafe due to presence of heavy metals. Purify ingredients

Medical fraternity has doubts over traditional medicine. Recent Nobel prize in medicine to a Chinese researcher was due to integration between traditional and modern systems. In India, for over 50 years even after independence, talk of integration was not even possible as modern researchers would not even listen to ideas of traditional systems. This has been changing in recent times and accelerated due to AYUSH.

Dr. TVV says China doesn't call its new discoveries as "Chines traditional" but just 'Chinese' - no glorification of tradition; focus is on medicine, not on system. Dr.Dhiman says the Chine Nobel prize winner read the Chinese manuscripts in detail, noticed that there was a mention of temperature under which decoction has to be prepared and established that preparing it at 50 deg. Celsius would prevent loss of essential ingredients which was happening earlier - hence was able to get the drug to be effective against malaria.

Ethical responsibility to disseminate knowledge free-of-cost. Seers have give 4 pramaaNaas.

17.9.2016:

Prof. Samit Chattopadhyay:
Director, CSIR-IICB (Indian Institute of Chemical Biology), Kolkata. Research specializations include chemical biology, canc. biology, immunological biology, developmental biology. PhD from Jadavpur Univ and post-doctorate from Univ of Connecticut and MIT. Says his final school exam results were very poor as he was going through troubled times in those days - had lost his father and a brother in the same year. But his eldest brother and some of his teachers motivated him to not give up and encouraged him to take up college education. Specialized in cytogenetics for his masters. Gene regulation in viruses intrigued him during his post-doctorate research. Was fascinated by the work of researchers like Hargobind Khurana and their dow-to-earth approach. Discovered a tumor-suppressant protein (regulator, gene??) while working in Pune. Says human cells have approximately 25000 genes. Of these, oncogenes are supposed to be in an inactive, "sleeping" state; but if these genes are awakened, tunour results. Says developing a treatment based on his regulator protein will be a better alternative to chemotherapy as the later causes DNA damage that destroys normal cells too thereby causing severe side-effects. Dr. TVV: Why is your protein not in market yet if it has far less side-effects? Reply: Protein is under pre-clinical trial and should go to clinical trial phase soon.

His institute is one of the oldest in India for biology research - established over 60 years ao, with roots going back to 1935. This institute was the first in the world to give the concept of oral vaccine - the institute was then doing research on cholera, leishmania. Dr. Samit has started "Translational Research of Universal? Excellence" - aims to recruit some of the best scientists and take research findings to the point of benefiting the society, a mandate of CSIR. Working on providing a low-cost kit for detecting leishmania (kala-azar). Says his institute has a rich legacy and continues to do excellent work on molecular biology ad small molecule development - it has developed 2 medicines - one for another, and another names Prostatin?.

Message to youngsters: Do not ever give up. Do not think anything (any finding) is small - some Nobel prizes have come as a result of seemingly small findings that turned out to have immense implications on further study.

24.9.2016:

Dr.Goutam Roy:
Director, NIRJAF (National Institute for Research on Jute and Allied Fibre). Institute does research on natural fibers except cotton - jute, flax etc. Inspired by Manna Dey, he aspired to become a singer. However, his academic excellence in textile technology and instrumentation. Has authored 27 text books on computer science (??). Completed masters in instrumentation. Developed 1st electronic fiber bundle strength tester. Prior to this, only mechanical instrument was used in his institute and those required manual intervention and calculation. He felt he could use his knowledge to improve the technique and with his senior's permission developed the electronic one.

Retting is the primary mandate of his institute, mainly the technology part. Inst. has developed several retting technology and these use less water and less or no manual labour. Developed a machine to which plants can be fed directly to extract fibres - applicable to plants like banana, pineapple etc. - this process does not require retting.

Plastic-like synthetic fibers do have some advantages but they are not bio-degradable.

Interviews of August 2016

7.8.2016:

Prof. J. Srinivasan:

Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic sciences, IISc. From an engineering background - M.Tech in mech. engg. from IIT-Madras, masters and Ph.D. from the US. He studied in 10 different schools in a span of about 10 years; school education in 4 different languages (Kannada, Hindi, Tamil?, English). His father was an IAS officer with Karnataka posting, a transferable job. Complated schooling from Bangalore.

Chose mech. engg. by chance. Each of his relatives felt the engg. domain they were working in had no future as there was not much growth in engg. in 1960s.

Had fun with friends in finding mistakes in what was taught by teachers. As an example, in 1950s, a teacher expanded LASER (very new then) as "Light Emission by stimulated ..", and one of his co-students asked the teacher if it was "stimulated" or "simulated".

Masters and Ph.D. specialization on radiative thermal transmission / heat transfer in atmosphere, though the department he studied in was an engg. dept. Says he was surprised to see a waning interest in engg. in the US in the late 1960s; US students didn't seem to realize the immensity of their country's contribution to engg. Also gained expertise in computational modelling (?) which helped him in atmospheric sciences work, like monsoon modelling.

Proxy method used to measure what the temperature was in the past. Ice preserves history - ice drilling in Antarctica to extract ice deposited decades or centuries ago; ice traps air and water; ratio of oxygen isotopes in these is related to global temperature.

Firmly believes that global warming is largely a result of human activities. Says that currently this can be proved only through scientific/mathematical models, but there are people who refuse to believe in mathematical models.

Earth's temperature has risen by 1 deg. celsius in the past 100 years, but if human activities continue in the same way as now, the temperature will rise by 4 to 5 deg. celsius in the next 100 years!! Society has got addicted to a lifestyle dependent on fossil fuel. Society should start changing right now. No scope for postponement, since earth is at a tippping point. If actions are postponed, whatever is done or not done then will not help in preventing the undesirable effects.

Cut down use of fossil fuels to 1/10th. It is okay to use fossil fuels for a few niche uses like medicine, but society is taking a shortcut by using fossil fuels for transportation and manufacturing when eco-friendly alternatives.

He has been changing is area of research and teaching every 10 years. Academic career gives him this freedom, something not available in industrial/non-academic career. Says he never applied for a single industrial job as a result.

Says India should have started focusing on solar and wind energy 50 years ago. Instead, India has been continuing to rely on oil and importing oil from abroad. Cost of solar energy production coming down and India must use this opportunity. India must produce energy from soalr, wind and hydro sources.

13.8.2016:

Dr. P. Udaykumar:

Senior deputy Director, National Institute of Nutrition, Hyd. Has received Norman Borlaugh research fellowship and numerous other awards. Is an eminent toxico-pathologist. 25th years in NIN where he also did his PhD.

Nutrition till 5 years of age has long-standing impact on life. According to Barker's hypothesis, nutrition when one is still in womb can sometimes decide the person's health lifelong, even decades after.

Sustainable development goals for 2030 includes goals related to health. Indian paradox: 1/3rd of population s under-nourished while 10% to 15% are obese or overweight.

Difference between food and nutrition - food is quantity; nutrition is about quality. Road-side eateries sell stomach-filling food but is not nutritious; has little dal and over 80% rice - not a right balance.

Sedentary way of life has increased due to nature of profession. Tells that his grandfathr used to eat a handful of ghee but would walk over 10 kms a day, neutralizing the negative effects of fat-dense and energy-dense ghee.

Vegetable oils generally more beneficial but blending needed since most  vegetable oils, lack one or the other of essential fatty acids.

Favourite quote: "Every food is a poison; only the dose matters". Cannot say tha fat is bad - the amount matters. Doing research on link between food and canc. in mice. Saturated fats, N6 fats and trans-fats seem to have similar levels of tumor-promoting effects as they are dificult to metabolize. N3 fats, which are considered good, are found to have inverse correlation with tumour-formation.

Nutrition in medical curriculum not given enough importance. Even during his M.D. days, the study of nutritional aspects of health was minimal. His study book on pathology has only 20 pages on nutrition, but it interested him a lot and he decided to take up research on nutritional-pathology despite it not being a sought-after specialization.

NIN has developed a kit to detect presence of iodine in salt. Has developed a double-fortified salt that includes iron and iodine. Iodine policy was drafted by govt.; iodine deficiency more prominent in sub-Himalayan regions and parts of NE-India.

Nutritive value of Indian food done 30 years ago. 5 years ago, NIN revisted this study and has come up with updated nutritive value information.

Recommended dietary intake guidelines for Indians also drafted by NIN. Is available free of cost as a Google app. and downloadable from mygov.in.

21 different types of brinjal alone in India - NINs has studied and documented the nutritive value of each; significant variation between these varieties w.r.t. nutritive value.

NIN offers an MSc programme in nutrition.

20.8.2016:

Prof.Ram Ramaswamy:

President, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. Professor at JNU. Outstanding inter-disciplinary researcher. Computational biology, nonlinear sciences. Born in Chennai, but studied in atleast 6 different schools due to his father being in a transferable job in the army. Completed schooling from a boarding school in Mussoorie. Most students from that school would enter business or army, and Ram was unusual in that he wanted to study pure sciences. B.Sc in chemistry from Loyola Colege - says it was not a concsious choice - he soon realized he wanted to work in theoretical chemistry and interface of physics with chemistry. Masters from IIT-Kanpur. PhD from Princeton University in scattering theory. Says IIT-Kanpur had an academic environment comparable to that in top universities in the US; his professors used to give assignment problems taken from latest journals.

Got interested in chaos theory (part of non-linear sciences) when doing post-doctorate in the US. Weather phnomenon, gaps in the rings of Saturn, motion of meteors etc. are all chaotic. Back in India, in the early 1990s, he was in a discussion with a friend, Dr.Alok Bhattacharya, who was a biologist, and this led to Ram taking an interest in computational biology. Question that Alok had was whether genes could be identified easily from long, random genome sequences. This led to his starting research in computational biology, a highly inter-disciplinary field - maths, computation theory, game theory, physics, dynamics, chemistry.

Founded by Dr.C.V.Raman in 1934, IASciences plays an important role in academic life in India. Fellowships awarded based on good work. Says recognition by peers is important for researchers whose work is often independent; IASciences provides recognition through fellowships. The academy publishes several journals in math and science fields.

Says it was in the 1990s that some members of academy started expressing concern over brain-drain in the field of sciences. Hence the academy started to award summer scholarships for 2000 students every year.

Advice to youngsters: Some houmour here. Dr.TVV says he doesn't like to use the word "advice" but he has gray hair and he isn't able to thing of a better word; Prof Ram says with a smile that he (himself) has almost no hair! A career in science is a privilege to have. Lots of interesting problems to solve.

27.8.2016:

Prof. D. Balasubramanian:

Renowned ocular biochemist/biologist. Director of research at LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyd. Kalinga Prize winner. Eminent science popularizer. Say 1.8% of population of A.P. and Telangana are blind as per WHO's (??) definition of blindness - blindness needn't be complete absence of vision. Extremely poor . 3-3.5 million Indians are blind because of very severe refractive index errors - can be treated in 10 minutes by prescribing approriate glasses; these constitute 10% of blind people in India; poverty and lack of access to doctors is why these people remain effectively blind. 45% of blind due to cataract - this too can be corrected by simple surgery. Another 10% are blind due to infections. Thus about 65% of blind people in India have some cure or remedy. Says eye camps are not the best choice for reaching out to larger and disadvantaged population with eye problems - post-operative care is important, which cannot be provided by camps. Pyramidal model of (eye-care??) hospitals and good rural-urban medical cooperation is the best solution to address the eye problems of the huge Indian popul'n.

On research being done. Glaucoma is the slow death of optic nerves. Can it be treated by correcting the eye fluid circulation valves just like heart valves are treated? Are there genetic factors behind glaucoma? Age-related macular degeneration - can stem-cell therapy be used to replace poor retinal cells with healthy ones. Eye of a child not developed fully during birth - develops fully only after birth. Prematures put in high-oxygen chambers are susceptible to retinopathy. LVP eye institute does translational research too by reaching out to .

On his background. He was trained as a chemist. Did M.Sc and PhD in chemistry. Says he got interested in chemistry due to an outstanding teacher. During his PhD years, he worked on understanding crystallines which are proteins the constitute eye lens. Ordinary glass is made of silicon dioxide. Biological lens is made of lipids and proteins, which have tiny ball-like structure - can be compared to cooked saboodaana. Pondered over what causes cataract and moved from CCMB to LVP eye institute - a move from pure theoretical/lab research to translational research -- feels it is one of the best decisions in his life.

On the controversy over genetically modified crops - says it is an unnecessary controversy. Genetic modification helps make plants more robust to pests, meaning less need for pesticides - this translated to safer and healthier food. GM cotton has been used in some countries for decades (Brazil etc.) and no adverse effects have been found. Says GM mustard is likely to be cleared soon by India.

Science as a subject is exciting, just like a good story can be exciting.