• AIIMS Pioneers Landmark Surgery
• Novartis Becomes Top Generics Maker
• NRI Doc Shows His Scalpel Skills
• India Hot Spot for Dental Nirvana
• Indegenous GSLV Launch in 2007: ISRO

• IITians Develop Device to Charge Mobiles
• Now, Rain, Shine & More at Click of a Mouse
• Akash Test-Fired Successfully
• From Ballia to Nasa
• Space Lab, Moon Mission to be Complete by '09: ISRO

At seven months, Ishika Gupta has already been hospitalised five times. She suffers from cardiac myopathy, a disease which is causing her heart muscles to degenerate. Not too long ago, this would have been very grim reading. But now there is hope. Doctors at AIIMS have injected stem cells taken from a bone in her leg into her tiny, frail heart. As she flashes a toothless smile and plays with her pacifier, mother Deepali hopes that Ishika's will be another success story of stem cell research at AIIMS. In another ward at the institute, a 70-year-old stroke patient is also set to be injected with stem cells to improve his condition. He suffers from a neurological disorder which has severely restricted his movements. He will undergo a stem cell injection on Friday. Both Ishika and the older patient come from very obviously modest homes. It can now be announced that AIIMS has marked a global first in pioneering stem cell medicine by the "injection method", placing the institute right at the top of the world's medicine map. AIIMS director Dr P Venugopal spent two and a half hours with TOI on Thursday explaining the features of stem cell research and treatment at the institute over the past two years. Here is the exclusive story. As part of a path-breaking study, conducted from February 2003 to January 2005, 35 cardiac patients have been given stem cell treatment and have been monitored at six, 12 and 18-month intervals. There have been no mortalities and all the patients were brought in at a stage when their hearts were beyond bypass surgery. There will now be a national stem cell centre at AIIMS which will coordinate the research and its applications. The statistics speak for themselves. After six months, 56 per centof the affected (read dead muscle) area injected with these cells had shown improvement. After eighteen months, this went up to 64 per cent. Most heart patients come at a stage when a transplant is the only solution. With this, the long queue of people awaiting a heart transplant can be cut down drastically.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 25, 2005

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All you need to charge your mobile is - air! Students at the Department of Industrial Design at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi have attached a turbine with a mobile phone that helps charge it even when the user is travelling, Head of the Department Professor Lalit Kumar Das told PTI. "The electricity generated by the turbine when moved by the wind energy could charge a mobile in emergency. It generates electricity to the tune of 3 to 4 watts which is sufficient to charge a mobile," he said. The specially designed turbine, which costs about 200 rupees to be developed inside a laboratory, is so small that it could be easily kept in a pocket, he said. The primary objective of the device is to extend mobile "connectivity" where there is no electricity whereas it also saves energy, though, not to a significant extent, he said.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, February 24, 2005

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Software to help farmers get better yield, keep records, share info. As agriculturists, wouldn't you like to know the exact amount of fertiliser you used three years ago for that bumper grape crop? That was on Sangamner's Deshmukh brothers Pramod and Sanjay's minds when they designed an agrobase software which can save farmers the trouble of looking for all those little details that matter. The software was designed out of their own experience. ''A few years ago, we decided to cultivate grapes. This was a long time after we had first grown them, so collecting data proved to be quite tedious,'' starts of Pramod, who has a degree in Bachelor's of Computer Science to his credit. With younger brother Sanjay - who has done an MCS - the two brainstormed and invented dbSoft, a tool which will serve as a powerful storehouse of information of crops and everything related to them. ''You can catalogue critical information like weather conditions, amount of pesticide sprayed, investments and of course calculate your profits. Farmers can even personalise it,'' says Sanjay.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, February 23, 2005

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Novartis AG became the world's biggest copy-cat drug maker by agreeing to buy unlisted German firm Hexal and U.S. company Eon Labs in a cash deal worth a total of more than $8 billion. Novartis will buy all of Hexal and 67.7 percent of Eon Labs from Germany's Struengmann family for 5.65 billion euros ($7.4 billion), it said on Monday, giving it a leading position in the major markets for generic versions of off-patent drugs. Swiss-based Novartis will also make a tender offer to buy the rest of Eon Labs for $31 per share at a cost of about $1 billion, and merge the two companies into its Sandoz unit, currently the world's number 2 maker of generic drugs, it said. Eon Labs stock closed at $27.92 on Friday. The deal will give Novartis access to high-margin versions of "hard-to-make" branded drugs and the scale required to reduce costs aggressively in a market marked by cut-throat competition and pressure on prices, analysts said.

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com, February 22, 2005

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Akash, India's surface-to-air missile, was test-fired from a mobile launcher at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur-on-sea, near Balasore, Orissa on Monday. It showed consistency in full flight, its 39 th, travelled its entire range of 25 km and hit the pilotless target aircraft "Lakshya." The Army and the Air Force, who would be using Akash, wanted it to demonstrate consistency during the entire flight and travel to the far-boundary (full range), which it did. The problems encountered in the earlier flight had been overcome. Akash weighs about 700 kg and its length is 5.6 metres. It can handle multiple targets with its command and guidance system. The Project Director of Akash is Dr. R.R. Panyam. Informed sources said the missile had better features than its U.S. counterpart called the "Patriot." It was totally mobile - it can be launched from a battletank. It has thrust during the entire flight - the propulsion will work till it hits the target. The Patriot has thrust only for 12 seconds and then the coasting begins. But Akash has thrust for 35 seconds. Besides, it is lighter and more effective.

Courtesy: The Hindu, February 22, 2005

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An Indian-American cardiac surgeon who successfully performed open heart surgery on a one-week old baby with a heart the size of a grape is the toast of both the medical community and the infant's mother, who is herself a paediatrician. Dr V Mohan Reddy, whose fame as a paediatric cardiac surgeon preceded this success, took on the difficult case after doctors in Southern California gave week-old Jerrick De Leon zero chance of surviving a condition known as "transposition of the great arteries," which disrupts oxygenated blood supply because of crossed blood vessels. The condition can be corrected by an arterial switch procedure, but what made Jerrick's case dicey was that he was born more than 13 weeks early and weighed only 700 grams, or slightly more than 1.5 pounds, at the time of his surgery. Even his mother Maria Lourdes was in despair considering Leon's survival at birth itself was a miracle. His premature birth at 26.5 weeks gestation was necessitated by her severe pre-eclampsia, a dangerous spike in a pregnant woman's blood pressure that can be fatal to both mother and baby. But the SoCal doctors referred Leon's case to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, where Dr Reddy had successfully performed a different cardiac repair on a newborn Serena Brown, who weighed only 640 grams at the time of her surgery in 2001. At the time she was believed to be the smallest child ever to undergo open-heart surgery.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 19, 2005

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Meditation seems to gel well with medication: designer smiles, fresh crowns and firm implants promise a refashioned nirvana for an increasing number of people from foreign shores as dentistry gets a new edge in India with state-of-the art equipment and multi-speciality centres. India seems to be emerging as a new destination for people who want specialised and expensive dental treatments such as root canal, crown replacement and even for those keen on fixing their teeth for a better smile. Interestingly, some of this clientele comprises people who come here for meditation courses, some are regular travellers, while several others come back for more treatment once they have had a pleasant experience. A woman from Germany suffered from a badly formed jaw, says Vineeta Chugh, who runs a multi-speciality dental centre in South Delhi. She had problems chewing her food, as her lower teeth would hit her palette. She is now among the regulars at the clinic as she combines leisure and sight- seeing with her dental treatment. An American TV anchor too landed up at this clinic to get a smile that would suit his face. "He wanted to reveal more of his teeth," adds Chugh. Predictably, what draws them to India is quality care at a fraction of the cost. In addition, they get that personalised touch from senior specialists which they may not get in their own countries, say the dentists.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 15, 2005

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Narhi village, in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, is in the midst of celebrations. Sixteen-year-old Saurabh Singh, born and brought up in this village, has just created a record of sorts by securing the top position in the prestigious International Scientist Discovery (ISD) examination conducted by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) agency. "We do not know what the examination means, but we know that Saurabh has done something wonderful. We are very happy for him and want him to reach greater heights," mumbles his grand aunt, who is too shy to take her own name on the telephone. Incidentally, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had also taken the ISD examination and had come seventh. "Dr Kalam is my ideal and I am happy that I could improve on his record," says Saurabh and adds rather woefully, "I wish I had got A++ in all the five papers and then my record would have been unbeatable. I managed A++ only in four papers, and in the fifth I had to remain content with an A+ grade." Saurabh had gone to Kota to take an IIT examination when he saw an advertisement for the ISD exam in a newspaper. "I applied for it and, after qualifying the preliminary test, I went to London for the final test in which I secured first position," he recalls.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, February 12, 2005

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Chairman of the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) Madhavan Nair on Friday expressed hope that the dream projects of setting a space laboratory in the orbit and obtaining images of the moon would be accomplished by 2007."The moon mission, wherein a spacecraft will be released in space for eliciting maximum information about moon terrain, will be launched in 2007 and is expected to be completed by 2009," Madhavan, who was in Jalandhar to attend a national seminar on 'E-contents on Edusat' said."ISRO scientists are working overtime to ensure that the moon mission is accomplished well within the timeframe," he said, adding similarly, an orbiting astronomical laboratory to fathom astronomical developments and keep a sharp eye on the galaxy would also be established in the space by 2007. Denying that India was lagging behind in conquering the moon, Madhavan said only developed countries like USA and Russia could achieve success in this field. "Even if we are able to make it by 2009, it will still be a big achievement for a country like India," he added. Whether the proposed laboratory would also help in predicting natural calamities, Madhavan said in such cases, its scope would be limited. Though the laboratory might send vital clues through space imaging, predicting a havoc like tsunami from space would be a difficult task unless there was some platform set up over the sea surface to measure its undercurrents.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, February 05, 2005

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The first launch of India's Geo-Stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine, will take place in mid 2007, ISRO chairman, Madhavan Nair, said in Hyderabad on Monday. It will put in orbit INSAT-4C, the first satellite in the INSAT series to be launched from the Indian soil. All INSAT satellites so far were launched from abroad by either American or European rockets. The Indian Space Research Organisation will start building one GSLV per year beginning next year, Nair told reporters on the sidelines of the international conference on "Aerospace Mechanisms". All the three GSLV launches from Sriharikota so far were made using cryogenic engines bought from Russia. They carried payloads weighing less than 2000-kg. The INSAT satellites are heavier.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, February 01, 2005

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