• Agri biotech on fast track in India
• India's first space university lifts off
• Scientists hail nuclear deal
• Evidence found for material surrounding stars before supernova explosion
• Water vapour found on exoplanet
• Indian may have found cure to HIV

• India plans to double its staellite launches
• Tiny finding that opened new frontier
• Sikkim can play a major role in energy market: Saran
• Chandrayan to take India to new horizons'
• Solar variations not behind global warming
• The world's study material is just a click away

India plans to double its annual satellite launches and put into space up to 25 spacecraft in a $2 billion exercise spread over the next five years as it moves to take advantage of booming demand for capacity, country's space agency chief said. New Delhi will increase the number of its satellite transponders from the present figure of 199 to 500 by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan (March 2012), said G Madhavan Nair, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Space Commission. "On an average, we may have about four to five launches in a year compared to hardly two that we are (currently) doing annually", Nair, also the Secretary in the Department of Space, said in an interview. "That's one of the major loads not only on ISRO but on industry and other establishments in the country", he said. ISRO officials estimate the cost involved in building these satellites and launching them in the expanse of Rs 8,000 crore to Rs 9,000 crore (approximately $2 billion to 2.25 billion). The Bangalore-headquartered space agency plans to launch as many as 15 INSAT-class satellites and 8-10 remote sensing spacecraft by 2012 as it moves to stay ahead of the demand curve.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, July 27, 2007

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Riding on the success of Bt cotton, agriculture biotechnology has emerged as one of the fastest growing biotech industries in India in recent years, a latest report of the US department of agriculture (USDA) has said. "It is the third largest contributor among various biotech sectors with total revenues of more than $229 million in 2006-07 fiscal, registering a growth of 55%," the report said. Export revenue from agriculture biotechnology has grown to $11.6 million in 2006-07 from around $8 million in the previous year, it added. The report, titled 'India biotechnology' and prepared by Santosh Kumar Singh, claimed Bt cotton coverage has surged over the past five years to cover 70% of total cotton area in 2007. However, according to data available with the agriculture ministry, Bt cotton acreage stood at 24.4 lakh hectares, out of a total of 72.3 lakh hectares covered under cotton, till the week ended July 20 in the on-going kharif season. The USDA report said, the continuing legal issues pertaining to the pricing of Bt cotton seed are likely to be detrimental to technology transfer and foreign direct investment in India's biotechnology sector. The report alleged that the regulatory process governing the biotechnology sector is not entirely science-based. "The regulatory process, which is still evolving, is not entirely science-based," it said. The environmental protection act of 1986 lays the foundation for India's biotechnology regulatory framework, which involves a hierarchy of monitoring committees, it added. Commenting on import policy, USDA said India's trade policy stipulates that imports of all biotech food and agricultural products, or products derived from biotech plants or organisms should receive prior approval from the genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC). "The only biotech product approved for commercial imports by India so far is soybean oil derived from round-up ready soybeans for consumption after refining," it said, adding agricultural trade balance is almost 3:1 in India's favour. "US exports to India estimated at $365 million and India's exports to the US at $1.04 billion in 2006," the report said. Agricultural trade between the US and India reached a record $1.4 billion in 2006, which excludes fish and forest products, it added. India's major agricultural exports to the US include cashew, sugar, spices, essential oils, processed horticultural products, rice, tea and castor oil.While US exports to India are almonds, cotton, fresh fruits, pulses, soybean oil, processed horticultural products and other consumer food products.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com, July 27, 2007

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An atom isn't just tiny, it's over 99.9% empty space. No one ever expected the atom to be as bizarre as it turned out to be. Since 1905 when a young Albert Einstein demonstrated for the first time that atoms must exist, they have consistently flummoxed scientists by their weird, almost contradictory behaviour. Here's a quick flavour of just how strange an atom is. And remember atoms aren't obscure objects - everything in the world around us is made of atoms - we are made of atoms. First of all, atoms are ridiculously small - they're about one tenth of a millionth of a millimetre across. That means that a human hair, one of the narrowest things visible to the eye is around a million atoms across. Put another way, there are more atoms in a glass of water than glasses of water in all the oceans in the world. In a new BBC Four series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili, a nuclear physicist, claims that the hunt for the secrets of the atom - the basic building block of matter - is the most exciting and unexpected of scientific detective stories. And the story gets really strange. An atom isn't just tiny, it's over 99.9% empty space. All the weight of an atom is concentrated in a mind-numbingly tiny object at its centre. It's a trillionth of a centimeter across and is called the nucleus.

'Empty' shell
The rest of the atom is entirely empty apart from a few ghostly objects called electrons that skim about at a great distance from the nucleus. The programme is presented by Prof Jim Al-Khalili. To give you a sense of how empty an atom is - if the nucleus was the size of a football, the nearest electron would be half a mile away. That means even the most solid-looking objects we see are predominantly nothingness. Put another way, if you were to remove all the empty space in the atoms that make up a human being, he or she would be a lot smaller than a grain of salt. If you removed all the empty space from the atoms that make up all the humans on the planet, then you could fit all 6 billion of us inside a single apple. This astonishing discovery that atoms are mainly empty was made in 1909 in Manchester University by the indefatigable Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford had great courage as a scientist and was prepared to fly in the face of convention. So when he announced that the atom was mainly empty, he did so knowing his claim flatly contradicted the then known laws of physics. These demanded that all atoms collapse instantly. It was a seismic moment in the history of science. Forced to explain the atom's mysterious emptiness, scientists had to jettison everything they had believed to be true for the previous two centuries. Their response was to invent an entirely new science, which we now call quantum mechanics.

Strange stuff
The strangest and most disturbing fact that scientists uncovered while investigating the atom was a law called "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle". In a nutshell, this states that atoms are in more than one place at the same time until a conscious observer looks at them. Think about this for a moment - if no one's looking at the atoms that, say, make up your hand, they're effectively spread out across the entire universe. Then when someone, maybe even you, looks at your hand, the atoms instantly coalesce into the hand-like shape you're familiar with. If ideas like this make your head hurt, don't worry. Even Albert Einstein, who as a young man pioneered atomic physics, was horrified by the idea that we somehow "invent" the Universe every time we look at it. He said, 'I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.' Exploring the atom has tested humanity's imagination and intellect more than any other scientific endeavour. Even now, as we peer deeper and deeper into the atom, it throws back as many questions at us as answers.

Courtesy: http://news.bbc.co.uk, July 26,2007

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India's first space university is all set to lift off, to produce experts that can take the country's satellite and rocket programmes to higher orbits. The Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) will begin operating just after Independence Day from the campus of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram next month. The Institute, which offers technical courses in space science and technology, has already attracted some of India's brightest minds. "Our original plan was to recruit students from the extended list of the IIT joint entrance exam (IIT-JEE). But we got a large number of applicants from the main list itself," says G Madhavan Nair, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which has set up the institute. ISRO will create a full-fledged campus for the IIST at Ponmudi, near the Kerala state capital, which will be ready in about two years. Around 150 students will be enrolled in aeronautical and avionics engineering, and in the integrated MSc in space sciences, in the first academic year. ISRO has set up the institute as it is faced with large-scale attrition with scientists leaving for better assignments in private industry and abroad. On the one hand it has been unable to attract the best talent. "Most of the students who come out of the IITs and IISc, Bangalore, either join management courses, the IT industry, or go abroad; they are not available to the Indian scientific community," Nair said. The Bangalore-based ISRO gets over 70,000 applications each year, of which it short-lists around 1,500 after written tests. In the final selection, it has been unable to pinpoint even 200 with the right aptitude, when it requires around 300. "We cannot rely on the marks given by engineering colleges. We have to conduct our own tests. Finally, we get only a handful of people. So, we thought we need to catch the students at the plus-2 level (12th standard)," Nair, who is also the Secretary in the Department of Space, said. The students will learn propulsion, aero dynamics, navigation, guidance, sub-systems, avionics, control systems, etc, so that ISRO can absorb them as soon as they pass out of the Institute. The course is heavily subsidised by ISRO, and the students joining the IIST have to sign a bond that they will work with the space agency for five years, or pay a large amount as penalty.

Courtesy: www.domain-b.com, July 23, 2007

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Sikkim can play a major role in cross-border energy trading with neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh by harnessing its hydel power potential to the full, Shyam Saran, special envoy of Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, said. By tapping its huge hydro-electricity potential, Sikkim can become a major supplier of power to the neighbouring countries," Saran said in his lecture on the 'Role of border states in India's Foreign Relations and Regional Economic Cooperation' here on Monday. Saran, also a former Foreign Secretary, however, resented the fact that the growth in this sector in the State had not been as fast as desired. Attributing this slackness of growth in the hydel-power sector to local people opposing power projects on various accounts, Saran said ecological concerns of the people were alright, but they need not fear anything if necessary safeguards were taken by the State government to protect the environment. "Development and ecology are not necessarily contradictory to each other; what we need to ensure is strike a balance between the two," he said. "Being a border state, Sikkim needed better roads, rail and air connectivity to play a key role in developing closer ties with our neighbours," he said adding that foreign policy regarding neighbouring countries had a strong domestic aspect to it.

Courtesy: www.thehindu.com, July 24, 2007

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Hailing the forward movement in the just concluded Indo-U.S. nuclear talks in Washington, top scientists here on Sunday cautioned the Government against any dilution of the original July 18, 2005 joint statement on full civil nuclear cooperation between the countries. With U.S. and Indian negotiators reaching an understanding on a pact that will operationalise the landmark deal by overcoming contentious issues like reprocessing and fuel supply, the scientists said this was a welcome step as it would end India's decades-old nuclear isolation. M.R. Srinivasan, member of the Atomic Energy Commission and former chairman of the body, said: "This will end India's nuclear isolation which was always due to U.S. policy." However, some experts pointed out that it was still not clear whether the latest understanding between the sides will free India, facing technology denial for over three decades, to shop around for civil nuclear technology and fuel. The former Bhabha Atomic Research Centre director, A.N. Prasad, said: "It isn't very clear whether the deal will be for full civilian nuclear cooperation as envisaged in the 2005 statement." Though the 30-page document on the 123 Agreement drafted by the negotiators has to get approval from the Indian and U.S. Governments, the scientists were sure the move would enable New Delhi to openly negotiate with the world nuclear business community and boost power generation capacity by getting access to nuclear components. Top Nuclear Power Corporation officials, who did not wish to be named, hailed the breakthrough and said there was a recognition that India had to go through the "reprocessing mode" for energy production. Though fuel reprocessing was a little expensive, it gave 30 times more energy than conventional nuclear plants, they said. Mr. Srinivasan said the draft 123 Agreement had to be approved by both Governments and parallel steps also had to be taken by India to start negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group. Once the agreement was approved, French and American nuclear businesses, which had been holding talks with the Nuclear Power Corporation, could go ahead with the selection of sites for power plants and other modalities, he said. "All these things will begin rolling once the 123 Agreement's draft, which has to be first reviewed by AEC, goes to the Prime Minister and gets final approval from the Union Cabinet," Mr. Srinivasan said. Mr. Prasad, considered the father of India's reprocessing technology, said the country always had the right to reprocess its spent fuel as the reprocessing plant was set up in 1965, much before the country's first civilian nuclear plant came up at Tarapur with U.S. assistance.

Courtesy: www.hindu.com, July 23, 2007

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Chandrayan, the prestigious moon mission of India, will put the country on equal footing with the other developed nations, said Dr M Annadurai, project director of Chandrayan - I. Addressing the reporters on the sidelines of Moon Landing Week celebrations at Regional Science Centre and Planetarium on Friday, he said the Chandrayan has given a great opportunity for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). ''ISRO is planning to launch the moon mission between February 21, 2008 and December 21, 2010. This is the best time for its entry into the orbit, as there will not be shadows over moon for long during these period,'' he said. If we change this schedule, shadows will come over the moon, which will adversely affect the mission as solar energy is necessary to keep it in the orbit for long. M Tamil Selvan, director, Arecanut and Spices Development Board; P N Vijayan, head, Depar-tment of Physics of St Joseph's College,Devagiri; P N Radhakrish-nan Nair of CMFRI and V S Ramac-handran, project coordinator with Regional Science Centre spoke.

Courtesy: www.bharat-rakshak.com, July 21, 2007

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The European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Very Large Telescope (VLT) has obtained a unique set of observations that has allowed astronomers to find direct evidence for the material surrounding a star before it explodes as a Type Ia supernova. Type Ia supernovae are extremely luminous and quite similar to one another. These exploding events have also been used extensively as cosmological reference beacons to trace the expansion of the Universe. However, despite significant recent progress, the nature of the stars that explode and the physics that governs these powerful explosions has remained very poorly understood. The team of astronomers studied in great detail SN 2006X, a Type Ia supernova that exploded 70 million light-years away from Earth in the spiral Galaxy Messier 100. The observations led them to discover the signatures of matter lost by the normal star, some of which is transferred to the white dwarf. "No Type Ia supernova has ever been observed at this level of detail for more than four months after the explosion. Our data set is really unique," said Ferdinando Patat, lead author of the paper reporting the results in this week`s issue of Science Express, the online version of the Science research journal. "The material we have uncovered probably lies in a series of shells having a radius of the order of 0.05 light-years, or roughly 3 000 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. The material is moving with a velocity of 50 km/s, implying that the material would have been ejected some 50 years before the explosion," said Patat. Patat said such a velocity was typical of the winds of red giants. According to the team, the system that exploded was most likely composed of a white dwarf that acted as a giant `vacuum cleaner`, drawing gas off its red giant companion. However, the cannibal act proved fatal for the white dwarf, said Patat. Patat said this was also the first time that clear and direct evidence for material surrounding the explosion has been found. "One crucial issue is whether what we have seen in SN 2006X represents the rule or is rather an exceptional case. But given that this supernova has shown no optical, UV and radio peculiarity whatsoever, we conclude that what we have witnessed for this object is a common feature among normal SN Ia," Patat said in his study 'Detection of circumstellar material in a normal Type Ia Supernova'. "Nevertheless, only future observations will give us answers to the many new questions these observations have posed to us," he said. The team made the observations using the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES), mounted at ESO`s 8.2-m VLT, on four different occasions, over a time span of four months. A fifth observation at a different time was secured with the Keck telescope in Hawaii. The astronomers also made use of radio data obtained with NRAO's Very Large Array as well as images extracted from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope archive for the study.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com, July 13, 2007

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The sun`s changing energy levels are not to blame for recent global warming and, if anything, solar variations over the past 20 years should have had a cooling effect, scientists said on Wednesday. Their findings add to a growing body of evidence that human activity, not natural causes, lies behind rising average world temperatures, which are expected to reach their second highest level this year since records began in the 1860s. There is little doubt that solar variability has influenced the Earth`s climate in the past and may well have been a factor in the first half of the last century, but British and Swiss researchers said it could not explain recent warming. "Over the past 20 years, all the trends in the sun that could have had an influence on Earth`s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures," they wrote in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Most scientists say emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, are the prime cause of the current warming trend. A dwindling group pins the blame on natural variations in the climate system, or a gradual rise in the sun`s energy output. In order to unpick that possible link, Mike Lockwood of Britain`s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Claus Froehlich of the World Radiation Centre in Davos, Switzerland, studied factors that could have forced climate change in recent decades, including variations in total solar irradiance and cosmic rays. The data was smoothed to take account of the 11-year sunspot cycle, which affects the amount of heat the sun emits but does not impact the Earth`s surface air temperature, due to the way the oceans absorb and retain heat. They concluded that the rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen since the late 1980s could not be ascribed to solar variability, whatever mechanism was invoked. Britain`s Royal Society -- one of the world`s oldest scientific academies, founded in 1660 -- said the new research was an important rebuff to climate change skeptics. "At present there is a small minority which is seeking to deliberately confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day," it said in a statement. The 10 warmest years in the past 150 years have all been since 1990 and a United Nations climate panel, drawing on the work of 2,500 scientists, said this year it was "very likely" human activities were the main cause. The panel gave a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2 to 7.8 Fahrenheit) this century.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com, July 12, 2007

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Astronomers have found water vapour in the atmosphere of a giant planet outside our Solar System. The detection in the extrasolar planet HD 189733b was made using Nasa's powerful Spitzer Space Telescope and is reported in the journal Nature. The team looked for the signal of water absorption in starlight poking through the edges of the atmosphere when the planet passed in front of its star. It is only the second time water has been detected on an exoplanet. Some researchers suggest that the presence of water could be a feature that is common to all gas giants - the type of planet represented by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in our own Solar System. HD 189733b orbits a star in the constellation of Vulpecula (the Fox), which is 64 light-years from our Sun. Although water is a key ingredient for biology, the planet is far too hot to harbour life. It orbits extremely close to its parent star - more than 30 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun. As such, temperatures range from a scorching 930C on the dayside of the planet, to a relatively balmy 700 Kelvin on the nightside. This type of planet is known as a "hot Jupiter". Giovanna Tinetti, from University College London and colleagues, measured the radius of the hot Jupiter HD 189733b at different wavelengths by tracking how much starlight is blocked by the planet as it crosses in front of its parent star as viewed from Earth. The planet looked bigger at the wavelength bands that corresponded to water, suggesting water vapour was present in its atmosphere. "Although HD 189733b is far from being habitable - and actually provides a rather hostile environment - our discovery shows that water might be more common out there than previously thought," said Dr Tinetti. She added: "Our method can be used in the future to study more 'life-friendly' environments." Another team of astronomers previously detected water vapour in the atmosphere of a "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b. The study, by astronomers in the US, was published in the Astrophysical Journal earlier this year. But some critics have argued that instrument effects in this data could have created the same signal as water vapour. Dr Tinetti said: "The 'holy grail' for today's planet hunters is to find an Earth-like planet that also has water in its atmosphere. "When it happens, that discovery will provide real evidence that planets outside our Solar System might harbour life." Co-author Sean Carey of the Spitzer Science Center in California commented: "Finding water on this planet implies that other planets in the Universe, possibly even rocky ones, could also have water." Earlier this year, the Spitzer Space Telescope became the first telescope to analyse, or break apart, the light from two transiting "hot Jupiters", HD 189733b and HD 209458b. This led to the first-ever "fingerprint", or spectrum, of an exoplanet's light.

Courtesy: http://news.bbc.co.uk, July 11, 2007

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Around 8,00,000 students from 1,000 colleges and educational institutions in India -- including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) -- will be able to connect with the world's best online study material, research laboratories and faculty members by March 2008. This high-bandwidth networking will be made possible by the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), which has started work on the first leg of setting up its proposed National Knowledge Network to connect all universities, libraries, laboratories, hospitals and agricultural institutions, enabling them to share data and resources across the country. The work, which will be carried out in phases, will link 1,000 out of 7,000 colleges in the first phase. The technical aspect of the first phase is being handled by a team of professors from IIT, Madras. The team prepared a report, which was submitted to the Ministry of Information Technology on June 30; the setting up of the network will commence after the ministry gives it the go-ahead. "There is a huge amount of open (free) educational resources available today. The linking of institutions will enable students to become part of the global student education community. It will not only bring down the cost of education substantially, but also bridge the difference between the good and not-so-good institutes," says A S Kolaskar, advisor to the National Knowledge Commission.

NKC also plans to create virtual classrooms through this linking of universities and educational institutions. It is focused on five critical areas of knowledge related to access, concepts, creation, applications and services. This includes a variety of subject areas such as languages, translations, libraries, networks, portals, affirmative action, distance learning, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, application in agriculture, health, small- and medium-scale industries and e-governance. Once the linking of the colleges is successful, NKC plans to extend the concept to schools too. The proposed broadband network is likely to have a 100 Mbps or higher access bandwidth -- almost all user institutions, therefore, will have to upgrade their networks to be able to cater to these speeds. While several institutions may already have an advanced network, a large number of institutes will need to upgrade their infrastructure on campus. The initial cost of the Knowledge Network will involve a recurring cost of Rs 20-40 lakh per institution connected, amounting to Rs 200-400 crore annually for the 1,000 institutions of Phase I. In addition, there will be a one-time capital investment to upgrade the local area networks (LANs) of these institutions to a 100 Mbps capability. Thereafter, based on the feedback, the installation of the inner core network of 10 Gbps or higher capability will be taken up. This will involve a capital investment of around Rs1,000 crore. NKC had recommended setting up a special working group of experts to finalise the specifications, implementation plans, cost estimates and network plans, as well as to carry out the actual task of procurement and commissioning of the network. This group will also establish a special purpose vehicle needed for running the network on a day-to-day basis.

Courtesy: www.rediff.com, July 05, 2007

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Acure for the deadly human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection might well be much closer than the world thought earlier. In a significant breakthrough, a group of scientists -- including an Indian -- seems to have discovered a way to remove the virus from infected cells, said a recent study. The scientists engineered an enzyme -- called Tre -- that attacks the very DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell, according to the study published in Science magazine. The enzyme, wrote lead author of the paper Indrani Sarkar, 'would need efficient and safe means of delivery and would have to be able to function without adverse side effects.' Sarkar participated in this project while she was at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. Currently, she is the associate scientific manager, Syngene International Ltd, Biocon [Get Quote] Park. The study says that the Tre enzyme is still in experimental stages and not yet ready to be used as a treatment, but hints at a very strong possibility that this might offer a cure to the more than 40 million HIV-infected people on the planet. HIV is a retrovirus: it infects the cells in the human body and also splices its own genetic code into the host cell's DNA, thereby merging itself with the patient's own tissues. What led to this amazing discovery? What was the motivation? Will this pave the way for more such discoveries?

We sought answers to these, and other, queries from Indrani Sarkar, who squeezed out time from her busy schedule to answer them through e-mail. Excerpts: Your discovery is being lauded worldwide as the potential cure for the HIV infection. How long did it take you to zero in on the enzyme -- Tre-- which attacks the DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell? The entire thing was essentially my PhD project, involving directed evolution of Tre and analysing its application in anti-HIV/retroviral therapy. The project, including the final experiments on HIV infected cells, took more than four years. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time the HIV provirus has been directly targetted and shown to be recombined out from genome of infected cells, showing that there is a way of evicting the virus from the genome. This basically opens up a new way to throw out the virus, and the 'proof of principle' study is applicable to any retroviral infection. The most important aspect is that this shows a way to eradicate the virus and not just suppress the virus. The first challenging task, of course, was to make Tre, using directed evolution. It took us a year-and-a-half, followed by screening and selection of the final recombinase. This was again a lengthy process, which was followed by more challenging experiments before reaching the virus-infected cells.

Finally, our efforts bore fruit. Please tell us how did you arrive at the conclusion that HIV can be removed from infected cells? The project was meant to use site-specific recombination on an integrated HIV provirus to remove it from the genome by using an evolved recombinase. The idea was there from the beginning, but the experiments in HIV infected cells showed us that this principle actually succeeds in removing the virus. What makes HIV so deadly, however, is its ability to insert itself into the body's cells and force those cells to produce new infection. Is Tre recombinase, the enzyme you developed, safe to use on people? If not, when will it be? The work we did was the first approach, the baby step as Dr Engelman from Harvard said in the perspective that appeared in the same issue of Science, which had an account of our work. Loads of work is yet to be done to transform this procedure into a therapy. That by itself is a mega project and will require years. This is right now a 'proof of principle' that a Tre-like enzyme can be used to snip the integrated provirus from the genome. When do you expect Tre recombinase to hit the market as an 'effective antidote to HIV'?

It's too early to say anything now. Could you tell us briefly about yourself and your colleagues who worked on this project? I am from Kolkata. After finishing college in that city, I went to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, for M.Tech in 2000-2002. Thereafter, I went to Germany to pursue PhD in the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, in the group of Frank Buchholz. The latter was my PhD supervisor. During the course of this project, we collaborated with Prof Joachim Hauber and Dr Ilona Hauber, eminent HIV virologists, from Heinrich Petter Institute of Virology, Hamburg, for final experiments with HIV infected cells. It was a wonderful collaboration and I am grateful to my supervisors and collaborators. HIV treatment in India is still quite expensive. With mobile and migrant population like truck drivers, sex workers and migrant labourers being the usual victims, how affordable will Tre recombinase be for end users? All these questions cannot be answered at this point. Does Tre recombinase pave the way for more interesting discoveries to counter HIV/AIDS? If so, how? Definitely this discovery will invite new ideas from HIV scientists and directed evolution scientists all over the world. Hopefully, it will bring in open up new avenues to combat this deadly virus.

Courtesy: www.rediff.com, July 05, 2007

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