As per the Academy’s tradition, the first lecture of the meeting was the Presidential Address by D. Balasubramanian. In his talk, ‘When science looks you in the eye’, he discussed a number of novel ways to correct disorders of the eye. Defects such as presbyopia among adults and myopia among children may be treated by replacing the lens with polymer gels which will then be controlled by the ciliary muscles of the eye. Corneal defects can be treated by procedures such as corneal polymer onlays, corneal sculpting (for long term correction), replacement of the entire cornea with biopolymer or co-polymer contact lens, or by reconstruction of outer corneal layer by stem cell methods.
These are important in a country like India where 140,000 cornea donors are needed but only few thousands are available. Balasubramanian also talked about methods, such as gene therapy, for correcting retinal defects, and methods for effective drug delivery to the retina, such as nanoparticle encapsulated delivery of carboplatin in the treatment of retinoblastoma. He also spent some time discussing the use of ‘adaptive glasses’ and photoelectric methods to correct eye disorders. He concluded his speech with questions that are as yet unanswered. Some of them are: (a) Is it possible to deliver genes using nanomaterials? (b) Can tear fluid be used as a diagnostic material? (c) Can reengineered taste bud cells be used to repair the retina? and (d) Is it possible to transplant the entire donor eye?
This was followed by a highly inspiring talk by C. N. R. Rao, ‘Emerging India as a great centre of science.’ He said that the only things he had when he started off on his scientific career were enthusiasm and the inspiration he got by interacting with eminent scientists like Sir C. V. Raman; Indians did not get much money for doing science in those days. He wondered why the quality of science has not improved drastically in recent times though the availability of monetary support has greatly improved. He also discussed a number of problems that scientific progress in India faces, such as the relatively low importance that science is given in society, ‘referee fatigue’ when papers are published in international journals and the low output of research papers and PhD holders from India.
Public Lectures:
a) Nandan Nilekani: 12th nov. 2009
Unique ID Number
Chairman, UIDAI in a lecture ‘Unique Identification Project-Issues and Challenges’ explained the road mapping of Unique Identification Authority of India. Increasing rate of aspirations, government's renewed emphasis on ‘Inclusive Policies of Economic Development’, need to acquire multiple services in private and public sector have forced the urgency of this Unique Identification Number. The multiple services require authentication for fulfilling the demands of the citizens and customer. The process of issuing such cards is time and cost intensive. This projects aims at reducing the duplication of efforts in creating multiple databases and also to provide a formal identity to the benefit sharing citizens of the government's welfare schemes. UID will provide a unique 16 digit number to all the citizens who voluntarily apply for it. However this number will only be used for verification of demographic information of citizen concerned and it will not award any rights, citizenship and other additional benefits. This system will enable online verification. Also, UIDAI will not share the data with anyone else envisioning balance between privacy and purpose.
Thus through UIDAI India will be first country to implement biometric based Unique ID system on such a large scale. In essence this project targets to enable government to address direct benefit programs more efficiently and allow departments to coordinate investments and share information. Mr. Nilekani elaborated on technological challenges viz. Unlikely uniformity in biometric modality, unavailability of biometric pattern in significant population, institutional cost, use of distributed computing (along with cloud computing and virtualisation) in the process of database sharing and authentication, optimization for networks, rural Internet connectivity, security, privacy, scalling, sustainability and adoption standards.
b) Mark Tully: 13th Nov. 2009
The need for balance in unbalanced world
His argument centered around promoting more dialogue between Sciences and non-sciences, especially religion, theology, mystical and traditional knowledge systems. He was advocating greater need to have liberal education in order to build the bridges between TWO CULTURES; sciences and social sciences. He was pointing out finger at inability of sciences in appreciating the viewpoint of the people at large involved in alternative methods of inquiry like poetry, music and painting. It was in the context of the rigidity of scientists, the authenticated WISDOM largely relying on rational analysis ignoring the popular beliefs and myths.
He was asserting that we should give more space, tolerance, platform for greater dialogue the spirit which is reflected in ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN written by Amartya Sen. In Q &A session one lady asked, "Whether he will preach the same TOLERANCE OF ARGUMENTS to religious fanatics just like he is conveying it to the scientists?" Some tangential discussion happened about literature of Richard Dawkins, a famous Biologists who as Tully said does less biology and more criticism of catholic church. He was trying to convey the point that in this era religion is the system which is trying most to be in the process of dialogue rather than rigid science.
Cold gas at high redshifts:12th Nov. 2009
R. Srianand from IUCAA, Pune talked about understanding of physical conditions in protogalaxies by analyzing cold gas at high redshifts. He highlighted another useful method of probing thermal state of interstellar medium of galaxies 21-cm absorption in the spectra of background quasars. Cosmology is a function of cosmic curve and red shift can be understood by application of Doppler Effect. Stars which are formed by cold gas the physical conditions of which are influenced by local radiation field, cosmic ray energy density, photoelectric energy by dust. 21-cm absorbers are capable of measuring correlation between spin and temperature. Challenge to measure Hydrogen molecules through 21-cm using GMRT, GBT and WSRT ( all major telescopes) was really the high excited state of H atoms. Therefore Hydrogen lines are not available for the purpose of Astronomical study. Survey conducted by R. Srianand provides representative sample of systems to be used in combination with various follow up observations like a) physical conditions, b) effect of metalicity, c) morphology of absorbing gas, d) time evolution of various fundamental constants.
Raman Spectroscopy: 13th Nov. 2009:-> Hallmark of the Platinum Jubilee meeting was symposium on Raman Spectroscopy as a tribute to founder of Acadamy C.V. Raman. Prof. Ajay Sood from IISc presided the proceedings. Inaugural lecture focused on versatility of the principle of Raman Spectroscopy and diverse applications in the research and life. Prof. Hiro-O Hamaguchi (University of Tokyo) talked about recent developments of Raman spectroscopy in enabling in vivo imaging of living cells with high time, space and molecular specificity. He mentions it as a spatial boundary of living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry citing this phenomenon being Raman spectroscopic signature of life when metabolic activity of mitochondria is reflected by using this technique. Changes in spontaneous cell death process have been traced by excellent molecular specificity by time resolved Raman imaging. The advantages of this technique explained by Prof. Hamaguchi include enabling knowledge about molecular structure and dynamics, no pre-treatment of samples needed, LASER excitation is possible for space resolved measurement, no water interference and usable in fibre optics techniques of endoscope and sensing. Disadvantages account for irradiation damages, low sensitivity, fluorescence interference etc. Major question being addressed by this research is can we measure and quantify molecular life so as to apply this knowledge in curing the diseases like cancer etc.
Volker Deckert (Friedrich-Schiller University, Germany) talked (Raman spectroscopy beyond the diffraction limit) about the evolution of Raman Spectra applications on the sidelines of the development of LASER and efforts to increasing the intensity of very weak signal. The advent of multichannel detectors, utilizing of field enhancing substrates helped to increase spatial information. His talk centers around recent experiments Raman experiments performed by near field geometers/optics. Instead of conventional lenses, light was squeezed through a tiny little aperture with dimensions already beyond the Abbe limit. (According to Abbe, a detail with a particular spacing in the specimen is resolved when the numerical aperture of the objective lens is large enough to capture the first-order diffraction pattern produced by the detail at the wavelength employed.) This research was major breakthrough due to combination of near field optical concepts and field enhancing properties of plasmonic nanoparticles.
A. W. Parker (Seeing below surfaces: Developments in Raman spectrocopy for chemical and medical analysis) talked about efficiency of Raman Spectroscopy among different ways of molecular structure determination like X-ray,NMR, vibrational spectroscopy, UV etc. This field was hastily driven forward by rapid growth of tunable pulsed(nanosecond and picoseconds) LASER capable of operating across the ultraviolet.., visible and near infrared spectral regions. Raman effect can be successfully adopted to characterize bone diseases in both mineral and organic component of bone matrix. This research can be used to develop and analytical non-invasive method assessing the composition of bone matrix (for supporting diagnose) and mother treatments.
Prof. Siva Umapathi of LASER Spectroscopy group of IISc talked about changing paradigm of Raman Spectroscopy passing from Physics to Biology through Chemistry. These trends include nonlinear spectroscopy, Raman loss spectroscopy, biophotonics. The new wave of applications of Fluorescence to biology, to materials was discussed. Time dependent dynamics especially Femtosecond dynamics was discussed. He talks about new form of spectroscopy which use the principal of stimulated Raman spectroscopy. Here the signals are observed as negative (LOSS) peaks and on the high energy side with respect to the excitation wavelength. He said that advantage of Ultrafast Raman Loss Spectroscopy (URLS) has the advantage of the very intense signals compared to normal stimulated Raman, the ability to record signals even from highly fluorescent signals at Femtosecond time resolution. URLS is tipped to be competitor for Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy and thus find applications in Biology and Medicine in the years to come. The rapid data acquisition, natural fluorescence rejection and experimental ease are the making it unique and valuable molecular structure determining device.
Multifunctional Poly(vinylidene fluoride)using Supramolecular interactions (Arun K. Nandi: 14th Nov. 2009) Achieving enhanced physical and mechanical properties of commercial polymeric materials by blending with other polymers, co-polymerizing with other monomers, grafting of the main chain with suitable polymeric/oligomeric moiety and making composites with nanofillers e.g. Clay, carbon nanotube, metal nanoparticle etc. is the main thrust in polymers materials research in past few years. Dr. Nandi reported use of supra-molecular interaction to achieve interesting properties by grafting of N-N-dimethylaminoethyl; methacrylate (DMAEMA) and n-butyl methacrylate directly from poly(vinylidene fluoride)(PVDF) backbone in solution phase by atom transfer radical polymerisation(ARTF). Gel permeable chromatography (GPC), Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and polymerization kinetics study conclude ATRP nature of the polymerization where four graft polymers are prepared. Few graft co-polymers show super gluing properties and can carry a weight of 16-18 kg for a sample of 0.015 cubic centimeter volume. Because of its water solubility, the polymer promises great use in biotechnology, nanotechnology, energy research, and separation processes.
Efficient graph algorithms: T. Kavitha (IISc): 14th No. 2009
Many real world problems can be posed as on graphs. As Kavitha tried to visualize problems of Road network in the context of efficient graph. Efficient graph algorithms are concerned about optimum path amongst the computing connections between all the pairs. These types of graphs may have edge connectivity problems. The focus of this research is time taken by algorithm should be small. To search for efficient algorithms it is necessary to know steps of optimal matching.
Interfacial electrochemistry using functionalised surfaces: S Sampath (IISc): 14th Nov. 2009
Molecules are intentionally attached to various surfaces to study their properties and to subsequently use them for variety of applications. Prof. Smapath talked about interfacial electro chemistry i.e. Interaction between solid-liquid, solid-solid and liquid-liquid. He talked about organic thin films and their possible applications in molecular electronics, chemical sensors, fuel cells, corrosion protection and studying novel surfaces. Organic thin films due to their single molecular layer on substrate, common orientation, high degree of order and packing and due to amenability of them are highly probable for the advanced applications. Here challenge being complicated pattern, robust stretch and catalyze use. Materials being used in this regard are donor-spacer-acceptor mono layers achieved by step wise assembly. In the reactions molecules are sandwiched between two metal surfaces while applying the orientation dependent electro-catalysis.
NMR as probe for strongly correlated electron behavior in mesoscopic devices: Vikram Tripathi, TIFR : 14thNov. 2009
Semiconductor mesoscopic structures are associated with strongly correlated electron phenomena of fractional quantum hall effect, Kondo effect, Coloumb blockade etc. Nuclear magnetic resonance techniques have proved very useful in the study of strongly correlated electron phenomenon in bulk systems. Dr. Tripathi showed that with suitable adaptations, NMR can prove similarly useful for ptobing electrons in mesoscopic structures. He illustrated the advantages of NMR with respect to transport measurements by considering two examples of strongly correlated behavior in semiconductor mesoscopic structures: a) 0.7 conductance anomaly in ballistic quantum wires, & b) the Kondo lattice scenario in disordered two-dimensional electron gases in heterostructures.
Glycosidase is an enzyme that brings about cleavage of glycosidic bonds and helps in the
metabolism of starch, glycolipids and glycoproteins in most living cells. Disorders such as diabetes can be controlled using glycosidase inhibitors as drugs. D. D. Dhavale talked about his work on iminosugars as glycosidase inhibitors and immunomodulatory agents, especially focusing on 1-deoxy-1-hydroxymethyl castanospermine and 1-deoxy-1-epi-hydroxymethyl castanospermine. These non-toxic compounds were synthesized from castanospermine that naturally occurs in black beans using traditional methods of organic chemistry. Apart from being glycosidase inhibitors, they are also immunomodulatory and show cell-proliferating capacity, ability to reduce levels of interleukin-4 (IL-4), increase levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and might trigger improved response to antibodies. Dhavale said that similar studies have been carried out on five-, six-, seven-membered and bicyclic pyrrolizine, indolizine, quinolizine and ozaazulene iminosugars in his lab.
Pramod Aggarwal spoke about the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture and also listed some steps that may be taken to protect our farmers’ interests. In the short term, increase in carbon dioxide concentration might improve yields of crops such as cereals and pulses. But even a one degree centigrade rise in temperature will decrease the yield of crops like wheat, mustard and groundnut by 3% to 7%. He also projected that the productivity of rice, wheat etc. will drop by 10% to 40% by 2100. Climate change will cause droughts, floods, increased activity of pathogens and increased heat stress all of which will directly affect agriculture. He pointed out that over the last three decades rice yields in the Indo-Gangetic plains and apple yields in Himachal Pradesh have shown a decline due to changing weather. Some of the adaptive strategies he suggested are assisting farmers to cope with climate change by setting up agro-advisories, insurance policies and seed banks, intensification of food production systems, improved land and water management, introduction of sustainable policies, strengthening research to develop resistant varieties, resource conservation, and sharing and evaluation of traditional wisdom.
Rudiger Wehner talked about the remarkable navigational capability of the ant, Cataglyphis bicolor, that helps it return in a more or less straight line to its nest once it finds food. This 10 mg desert ant with a 0.1 mg brain solves complex computational tasks required to achieve this feat relying mainly on visual cues. Wehner, in his talk ‘A neuroethologist’s look into the cockpit of an insect navigator’, said that the ant uses polarized light of the sun as a compass, and makes a ‘cognitive map’ of the landmarks around it. He also explained how they studied the navigational capabilities of this ant through behavioural and neurophysical studies coupled with computer and robotic simulations.
R. Gadagkar, in his talk ‘Communication of social status in a primitively eusocial wasp’, drew lessons from various studies done in his lab on the wasp, Ropalidia marginata. He explained how a queen rubs a non-volatile pheromone secreted in her Dufours gland on the ‘floor’ of the nest to maintain her reproductive monopoly. He also talked about the intriguing behavior of the wasps which accept the successor to the queen’s ‘throne’ without challenging it at all. We still do not know where the successor’s ‘prestige’ comes from, nor can we predict which wasp will be the successor to the queen. But we do know now that the wasps know who the heir designate is!
Every other cardiac patient in the world will be an Indian in two years’ time. Efficient diagnosis of heart disease, hence, is very important. Explosive detection too has become essential in today’s world. V. Ramgopal Rao, in his talk ‘Polymer-based sensor systems for healthcare and homeland security applications’, talked about the sensory applications of micro-cantilever platforms made of polymer materials such as SU-8. Heart diseases can be diagnosed based on vibrations of the cantilevers when antibodies coated on them react with antigens. Explosive detection is more complex as explosives have very low vapour pressure. Cantilevers coated with materials that have an affinity to explosives can be used. However, sensitivity of the cantilevers is a problem that needs to be resolved.
A. Bhardwaj spoke about the basic design of the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA), which was an experiment onboard Chandrayaan I, and its recent findings. SARA consists of three parts – Chandrayaan I Energetic Neutrals Analyzer (CENA), Solar Wind Monitor (SWIM) and a Digital Processing Unit (DPU). CENA was designed to face the lunar surface and SWIM was placed at right angles to it, facing the sun. CENA was used to observe energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) in the energetic range of 10 – 3 keV, and SWIM was used to measure ions in ~ 10 – 15 keV range. The main objective of SARA was to study the interaction of solar wind ions with the lunar surface by measuring ENAs and ions.
The major findings of the experiment are: (a) The solar wind ions are scattered from the lunar surface after impaction (b) ~20% of the impinging solar wind protons are reflected back as ENAs (c) The moon is a strong source of ENAs (d) Detection of lunar night-side ions (e) Discovery of a mini-magnetosphere on the moon near the Gerasimovic crater on 17 June 2009. Bhardwaj concluded his speech by saying that lunar surface interactions are much more complex than what was known before, and the microphysics of plasma-surface interaction is poorly understood.
In his talk ‘Prey-predator response: current research and paradigm shift’, Joydev Chattopadhyay examined a new solution for the classical ecological problem, ‘the paradox of the plankton’. The problem is about the driving force behind the ever-changing species abundance in plankton communities and the resulting non-equilibrium. Based on field experiments and mathematical modeling, he sought to provide a plausible answer to this 48-year old problem. In a system of Atremia (a predator), Chatocerous (non-toxic prey) and Microcystis (toxic prey), for example, Atremia consumes Chatocerous in the first few days. As the population of the non-toxic prey diminishes, Atremia begins to consume Microcystis. This causes a reduction in Atremia population, allowing the Chatocerous population to increase again. Such a cycle of events allows the coexistence of these species in nature. Chattopadhyay suggested that a paradigm shift may be required to solve such problems, involving derivation of new Functional Responses (FRs) based on various phonological events, rather than depending on already existing FRs.
One of the important tasks of polymer materials research has been to develop commercially viable materials with better physical and mechanical properties, through various methods such as copolymerizing with other monomers, grafting the main chain with another polymeric or oligomeric moiety etc. Arun K. Nandi, in his talk ‘Multifunctional poly(vinylidene fluoride) using supramolecular interactions’, described the development and properties of a material obtained by grafting N,N-dimethyl aminoethyl methaacrylate (DMAEMA) and n-butyl methacrylate directly from poly(vinyl fluoride) (PVDP) backbone in solution, by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). Four graft polymers, varying in density according to the number of hours of polymerization, were prepared and named PD-6, PD-12, PD-18 and PD-24 respectively. Some of the properties of these polymers include induced solubility in water, decrease in melting point by 5 to 6 degrees centigrade, 45 times higher tensile strength, 1970% increase in toughness, 5 times increase in dielectric constant and better gluing property when compared to PVDF. These properties suggest their applicability in biotechnology, nanotechnology, energy research etc.
In the context of rising global temperature due to climate change, development of heat tolerant rice varieties becomes important especially for rice-dependent countries like India. Anil Grover, in this speech ‘Molecular components involved in mounting response to high temperature stress in rice’, talked about a class of proteins called heat-shock proteins (HSPs), with particular reference to HSP100. HSPs are produced in all organisms in response to heat (or any other stress). Due to their chaperone action, they remove denatured proteins and also help to restore the native conformation of proteins. HSP100 is particularly important as it is produced very quickly in response to stress and in large quantities. The gene for HSP100 has a 2kb promoter region, an essential component.
Regulation of HSP100 in rice involves the action of cytoplasmic, mitochondrial and chloroplast associated ClpB proteins too. The function of the latter two ClpB proteins is not fully understood as yet. ClpB proteins act in association with small HSPs (sHSP). Of the 40 HSP20 genes identified in rice, 23 were found to constitute sHSPs. Further work is aimed at building a comprehensive model of rice HSP gene expression, which would aid the development of heat tolerant varieties.
Navroz Dubash, from Centre for Policy Research in his talk ‘What should be India’s strategy in climate negotiations?’, spoke about international and national debates about climate change. International debate ranges from ‘who should decrease emissions – when and by how much’ to ‘what should be India’s role in climate change mitigation’. Indians agree that being labeled as a ‘major emitter’ is unfair as we contribute only 4% of global emissions (though that makes us the fourth largest emitter) and our per capita emissions in 70% below world average. Our efforts to mitigate climate change are not being appreciated, and we already have the burden of still being a developing nation. Dubash said there are three varying views in India: (a) the ‘growth-first stonewallers’ believe that it is our turn to become a developed nation and international commitment must be stonewalled (b) the ‘progressive realists’ believe that it is unfair to have international commitments imposed on us, and that the world is using India as an excuse. However, they suggest that co-benefits need to be explored, and (c) the ‘progressive internationalists’ agree that India is being used as an excuse, but believe that we need to develop an effective climate regime as it is impossible to delink domestic and global issues. Dubash suggested that ‘the two progressive groups have to join forces for a renewed Indian climate politics’.
Malaria is a major disease in tropical countries like India. Estimates show that there are around 500 million cases of malaria worldwide, resulting in 1 million deaths annually. This warrants the need for the development of a vaccine against Plasmodium. Chetan E. Chitnis presented a new approach to vaccine development in his talk, ‘Rational design of a malaria vaccine.’ Plasmodium has a number of polymorphic strains, which has made vaccine development difficult. Chitnis concentrated on the possibility of developing a vaccine against the highly conserved binding site of the Duffy binding protein (DBP) of the pathogen which binds to the Duffy antigen chemokine receptor (DARC) on RBCs. This will inhibit RBC invasion by Plasmodium merozoites. This approach might be an effective way of protecting people in regions where malaria is endemic.
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