IIT-M to launch cancer tissue bio-bank

Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT) Madras, is all set to launch the na­tional cancer tissue biobank, a first-of-its-ki­nd community-based tissue bank.

This tissue biobank is a joint venture between the department of sci­e­n­­ce and Technology, gov­e­r­nment of India and II­T-Madras. The initial fo­cus of the bio-repository is to collect and store vario­us cancer tissues.

“We will initially take samples from cancer pat­ients in hospitals in and around Chennai with their consent. When the surgeon does the surge­ry, he will provide us wi­th a tissue for the bank. We will use the sample for identification of biomarker and for generic sequencing for personalised drug delivery,” Professor S. Maha­lin­gam, professor in the de­partment of biotechnology at the IIT-Madras and who is involved in the pr­oject said.

He added that Union government’s departm­ent of science and technology and IIT-M had provided a joint funding of Rs 31 crore as five-year initial funding for establishment of the biobank.
The biobank will be launched as part of Can­cercon 2014, a three-day cancer research conference, which starts on January 30.

IIT-M’s Biotechnology department and Cancer Res­earch and Relief Tr­ust (CRRT) ha­ve jointly organised the conferen­ce. Professor K. Vijay Raghavan, secretary, union biotechnology de­p­artment and IIT-M dir­ector Professor Bha­skar Ramamurthi would ina­ugurate the conference.

Next: Collaborative research on materials with OZ university

Collaborative research on materials with OZ university

Chennai: The Indian Inst­itute of Technology, Ma­dr­as and Australian De­ak­in University have joined ha­nds to do collaborative re­s­e­­arch in materials and ad­vanced manufacturing, for which they signed an MoU on Monday.

“This memorandum of understanding will facilitate supervision of stude­nts by faculty in both un­iversities and in the future we will award joint deg­re­es. Six faculty from the De­a­kin have identified their found out their areas for research,” IIT-M director Professor Bhaskar Rama­murthi said after signing the MoU said.

The Deakin faculty, acco­rding to Prof Ramamurthi would work with departments including Civil, me­c­hanical and computer science. “Our vision for the fut­ure is to have a few hundr­ed research scholars from foreign countries at given point of time for collaboration,” he said.

Prof Jane den Hollander, VC of Deakin university sa­id that they had joined hands with IIT-M as future research wo­uld be at the global level with partners across the gl­obe.

“We are also looking at Indian partners for sports management programme as there has been increasing interest from Indian students for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in sports management,” Prof Hollander said.

Ravneet Pahwa, India director, Deakin Un­iversity, said that their institute would soon tie-up with one of the Indian Pr­emier League (IPL) teams to provide them with technology support.