Brain co-processors are an emerging technology aimed at enhancing the human brain’s natural abilities in ways relevant to real-life situations.  Photo: brain-computation.iisc.ac.in

Passive human structures like roads and settlements sometimes reduced animal vigilance, an Indian Institute of Science release said. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Attentive ophthalmologist examines a patient’s eyes using specialized equipment during a comprehensive eye examination
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Optics and optoelectronics technology company Zeiss India has collaborated with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to start a research lab for AI in eye care at the IISc campus. 

The initiative aims to leverage AI to drive advancements in eyecare solutions and enable researchers at IISc to explore the technology’s potential in facilitating early diagnosis, treatment personalisation, and accessibility in ophthalmology. 

Ashish Modi, Head of Centre of Application Research India (ZEISS India’s R&D Division), told The Hindu that the lab is being set up with high-end IT infrastructure for Master’s and PhD students. 

“We will sponsor these students. As of now, we have two Master’s students who have enrolled and we are looking for two PhD students,” said Mr. Modi adding that the plan is to have around 8-10 researchers working in the lab over the next three years.  

Creating database

The lab which is part of Zeiss India’s CSR initiative would initially look at research on creating datasets for glaucoma, AI-enabled early screening of diabetic retinopathy and early identification of ageing-related cognitive impairment. 

On top of this, it would also look at building handheld devices that can be taken to remote areas, enabling AI to do large-scale screening, thereby reducing the load on healthcare workers, and working with hospitals to gather, standardise and annotate data to develop high quality data. 

Intertwining two

Dr. Rajesh Sundaresan, Dean – Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, IISc, told The Hindu that the lab fits well into the institute’s plan of setting up a medical school and hospital.  

“Clinical research is somewhat separated from practice in India. Intertwining these two is important and the hospital at IISc is one such experiment. We have to think of healthcare, diagnostics and delivery of healthcare in a modern way, and AI can enable the acceleration of better healthcare today. There is a concerted effort to bring together AI-enabled healthcare with the hospital and the medical school, and the technology and science at IISc,” he said. 

Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru
| Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN

The Headquarter Maintenance Command of the Indian Air Force (IAF) has entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) and Foundation for Science Innovation and Development (FSID), Bengaluru on November 18.

The MoA includes jointly identifying problem areas of IAF in maintenance and servicing of equipment related to radar, aircraft, IT and communication platforms and developing a strategic road map for reliability-centered maintenance through Research and Development.

This will also include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Digital Twin based technologies for lifecycle management, productive maintenance and asset planning.

The Ministry of Defence expects the MoA to enable the two organisations to access testing facilities available with each other for mutual benefit. It will also enable IAF in enhancing academic interaction with IISc towards Post Graduate Programs and support in collaborative R&D efforts. This collaboration will give a boost to self-reliance under Atmanirbhar Bharat, and encourage startups, MSME and other industrial setups to participate in defence indigenisation programs.

Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

A team of scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has devised a way to break down ‘biofilm barriers’ to aid entry of drugs.

The IISc said that most of the disease-causing bacteria secrete matrix-like layers around themselves called biofilms. These biofilms act as thick barriers, limiting the entry of drugs, and helping the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. To break down this biofilm barrier, the team has used an enzyme from the cow’s digestive tract.

Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) is an opportunistic bacterium that infects patients in hospitals, causing conditions like pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and meningitis. It wounds diabetics, leading to complications that may sometimes result in amputation of a limb.

K. pneumoniae secretes a tough matrix-like biofilm made up mostly of sugars, fats, proteins, and DNA. Strings of sugar molecules in this matrix come together to form polysaccharides, which play a key role in making the biofilm stronger.

The IISc team decided to develop a biocompatible strategy to break down these polysaccharides, and disrupt the protective biofilm. They realised that polysaccharide-degrading enzymes could serve the purpose, and that a cow’s gut was the ideal place to look for them. The bovine gut harbours microbial enzymes that digest different kinds of complex polysaccharides, such as cellulose and hemicellulose, which the animal takes in from plant food.

Cellulosic polysaccharides are very similar to the ones in the bacterial biofilms. The team focused on a set of enzymes called glycoside hydrolases (GH), looking closely at their protein structures to identify the ones that could potentially break down polysaccharides efficiently. They zoomed in on the one they called GH-B2, found in the rumen, the largest stomach compartment, and artificially synthesised it in the lab.

When they tested the lab-made GH-B2 on four different strains of K. pneumoniae isolated from different patients, they found that it successfully broke down biofilms in all four.

Debasis Das, assistant professor, the department of inorganic and physical chemistry (IPC) and corresponding author of the study, said that such a broad activity of the enzyme was surprising, as the strains were different in terms of their serotypes.

The Indian Institute of Science.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Indian Institute of Science (IISc) researchers have found that a glitch in protein synthesis could affect tumour growth.

In a new study published in the Journal of Cell Science, Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Sandeep Eswarappa’s team zeroed in on a gene that codes for a protein called FEM1B.

They show how FEM1B mRNA readthrough plays a key role in the cell cycle, with implications for cancer cell proliferation and tumour growth.

Marking right proteins

“The FEM1B protein is part of a complex that marks other proteins for degradation. Its job is to make sure that the right proteins are marked. The complex targets key proteins involved in many cellular processes – one of them being the cell cycle, to keep a check on how much cells proliferate,” per IISc.

“In the study, the researchers found that stop codon readthrough causes the translation machinery to make a longer and more unstable version of FEM1B. Ironically, this marks FEM1B itself for degradation, leading to reduced levels of the protein. The team found that a specific nucleotide sequence at the tail end of the FEM1B gene directs this readthrough.”

According to IISc the team then became curious about how this would affect cancer cell growth – a hallmark of the deadly disease is the uncontrolled proliferation of cells. In lab-grown cancer cell lines, they deployed the CRISPR-Cas9 system – commonly used “molecular scissors” – to snip off the sequence driving the readthrough from the FEM1B gene. Preventing readthrough led to increased levels of the FEM1B protein – and therefore increased degradation of target proteins – and a delayed cell cycle. This caused the cancer cells to proliferate less.

The team then injected the readthrough-defective cancer cell lines in a mice model and found that the consequent tumours grew more slowly.

Delving into publicly available datasets of human cancer patients, the researchers also discovered that a higher expression of the FEM1B gene correlated with an increased probability of survival, which was consistent with their hypothesis.

Evolution of gene

When they looked at the evolution of the FEM1B gene, they realised that the readthrough process seems to be found specifically in humans and chimpanzees.

IISc said, “They think that this glitch might have occurred due to the insertion of a single nucleotide downstream of the first stop codon – a tiny change that happened about 10 million years ago, when humans and chimpanzees branched off from other primates. This could be one of the factors that contributed to increased susceptibility for cancer in humans compared to other primates, the authors speculate.”

For some people, snakes are exotic yet dangerous creatures of the wild; eerie but elusive, and not something to worry about in day-to-day life. For others, especially some farmers in India and Africa, they are a constant and terrifying threat to life. 

Venom from snake bites leads to more than 100,000 deaths every year, with around 400,000 people left permanently disabled The mortality burden is especially higher in low and middle-income countries in Africa and Asia, with India alone at a staggering average of 58,000 deaths in a year according to a 2020 report. However, considered a “poor man’s disease”, relatively less attention has been paid to the devastation caused by the bites. In some of these countries, snakebite incidence is distressingly high but inadequate access to proper healthcare prevents fast and efficient treatment, leading to disproportionately more deaths. 

Things were set to improve in 2017 when the World Health Organisation (WHO) finally stepped in to alert the world about one of its biggest hidden health crises. It officially classified snakebite envenoming as a highest priority neglected tropical disease.

Animals in the middle

A major issue is that the current process of producing antivenom is outdated: it involves injecting large animals like horses with snake venom and collecting the animals’ blood for the antibodies it produces against the venom.

But the horses’ blood could contain antibodies against other microorganisms as well, even against other components of the venom that are not harmful to humans. So only a fraction of the antibodies in the antivenoms is useful to humans, leading to more variability and the need for larger doses.

In addition, because these antibodies are produced in another animal, the chances of humans developing an adverse or allergic reaction to these antivenoms are also higher.

A variety of venoms

Driven by these concerns, a group of scientists — part of a consortium funded by the Wellcome Trust — decided to sidestep animals and use human antibodies instead. Using a type of toxin found in many kinds of snakes, they synthetically developed a broadly applicable human antibody against the toxin. Their results were recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“Venoms of snakes in India are so diverse that venoms of the same species across regions can’t be neutralised by the same antivenom,” Kartik Sunagar, head of the Evolutionary Venomics lab at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and one of the lead authors of the study, said.

“Even in the same geographical location, if you look at individuals of the same species, antivenom can only neutralise some venoms and not others. There is a stark variation in venoms, so that’s why we wanted to figure out a solution that might work across regions and across species.”

Screening billions of antibodies

The scientists focused on three-finger toxins (3FTxs) — one of the most abundant and lethal ingredients in elapid venoms. Elapids are a major medically relevant family of snakes that include cobras, kraits, and mambas.

The scientists narrowed their focus on α-neurotoxins, a specific class of 3FTxs that target receptors in human nerve and muscle cells. These toxins prevent the receptors from responding to acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter involved in carrying messages from the neurons to the muscles, leading to paralysis, an inability to breathe, and eventually death.

Joseph Jardine, an antibody expert at Scripps Research Institute, in California, led the initial work of “finding the needle in the haystack” — i.e. finding the best antibody that could target the toxins among the billions of human antibodies available.

The scientists first synthesised variants of their toxin of interest, called long-chain 3FTxs (3FTx-L, a type of three-finger α-neurotoxins), in the lab. They then screened billions of human antibodies expressed on the surface of yeast cells for ones that bound best to the toxins in their study. This selection of antibodies far exceeds any number of antibodies that an animal’s immune system could cook up in response to a venom. After multiple rounds, they had a shortlist of antibodies that broadly reacted with most of the 3FTx variants they used.

All but king cobra

Nicholas Casewell’s group at the Liverpool School for Tropical Medicine in the U.K. then tested the antibodies in vitro in human cells, to see which of them could best neutralise the toxins. This step brought them to an antibody they dubbed 95Mat5.

Finally, Dr. Sunagar’s group tested 95Mat5 in vivo in mice, to see if this broadly neutralising antibody could help protect against lethal doses of α-bungarotoxin, the 3FTx-L in the highly venomous many-banded kraits. They also injected mice with whole venom from king cobras, black mambas, and monocled cobras — all different elapid snakes from Asia and Africa with venom containing 3FTx-L variants — and tested to check how their antibody worked against them.

They found 95Mat5 worked well against all the snake venoms, protecting the mice from death, with the only exception being the king cobras’ venom, where the antibody delayed but could not prevent death.

“We were surprised by the results of the black mamba, where the 3FTx-L is only 17% of the total venom composition. By knocking out that one toxin, we were able to protect mice fully from the other toxins in the venom in what may be a synergistic effect,” said Irene Khalek, a scientist at Scripps Research Institute and one of the authors of the study.

An ‘impossible’ find

“The study is really well-performed, and I would expect that the antibody could be used as an important component in future antivenoms against mambas and cobras in Africa and Asia,” Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, head of the Tropical Pharmacology Lab at the Technical University of Denmark, said.

Dr. Laustsen-Kiel was involved in a different study, published in Nature Communications last year, where a group of scientists discovered a similar broadly neutralising antibody against long-chain α-neurotoxins from snakes.

“Because snake venoms are so complex, I would have thought it impossible to make an antibody that could knockout the whole venom,” Dr. Sunagar said.

Closer to a universal solution

In the current study, the scientists found one reason why their antibody worked so well against their toxins of interest: the crystal structures of their antibody 96Mat5 and 3FTx-L variants revealed that the antibody bound the toxin exactly where the toxin would have bound its target receptor in human nerve and muscle cells. By mimicking the receptor-toxin interaction, the antibody could whisk the toxins away from the receptors and prevent them from exerting their deadly effects.

The current antibody works well against a specific kind of toxin present in the venom of many dangerous snakes, but it is also a small first step towards a universal antivenom. The scientists said they are keen on discovering specific antibodies like these against toxins in other snake venoms as well, like in vipers.

“We need to discover antibodies for a couple of other toxins, then we can have a universal solution for the majority of snakes in the world,” Dr. Sunagar said.

Rohini Subrahmanyam is a freelance journalist.

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru have created a promising new material that can replace natural sand in construction. This development comes as a response to the growing scarcity of sand, a crucial component in building materials.

The team at IISc’s Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST) is exploring methods to utilise carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from industrial waste gases. They treat excavated soil and construction waste with this CO2, transforming it into a viable sand alternative.

“These materials can then be used to partially replace natural sand. This would not only reduce the environmental impact of construction materials but also impart properties that can enhance their use for construction,” stated IISc in a press release.

Led by Assistant Professor Souradeep Gupta, the research demonstrates that using CO2-treated construction waste in mortar, followed by curing in a CO2-rich environment, significantly accelerates the development of the material’s strength.

“CO2 utilisation and sequestration can be a scalable and feasible technology for manufacturing low-carbon prefabricated building products while being aligned with the nation’s decarbonisation targets,” explains Dr Souradeep Gupta, whose lab is carrying out these studies.

This innovative process boasts a 20-22% increase in the material’s compressive strength. Additionally, injecting CO2 into clay soil, commonly found at construction sites, improves its interaction with cement and lime. This not only stabilises the clay but also enhances its overall engineering performance.

Dr Gupta’s team’s research extends further. They’ve explored incorporating captured CO2 into excavated soil to create cement-lime-soil composites, potentially replacing up to half of the fine aggregates typically used in mortar. This technique promotes the formation of calcium carbonate crystals, leading to improved strength and reduced pore space. Exposing these materials to CO2 further accelerates curing and increases early-age strength by 30%.

The researchers have also developed 3D-printable materials using stabilised excavated soil combined with binders like cement, slag, and fly ash. These materials offer superior printability, potentially reducing the need for cement and sand by up to 50% each.

Future research will focus on the impact of industrial flue gas on these materials’ properties, paving the way for industrial applications and potentially revising standards for cement-based construction materials.

Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

Two new studies from the Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, explore how closely attention and eye movements are linked and unveil how the brain coordinates the two processes.

According to IISc, attention is a unique phenomenon that allows us to focus on a specific object in our visual world and ignore distractions.

“When we pay attention to an object, we tend to gaze towards it. Therefore, scientists have long suspected that attention is tightly coupled to rapid eye movements, called saccades. In fact, even before our eyes move towards an object, our attention focuses on it, allowing us to perceive it more clearly – a well-known phenomenon called pre-saccadic attention,” IISc said.

However, in a new study published in PLOS Biology, the researchers at CNS show that this perceptual advantage is lost when the object changes suddenly, a split second before our gaze falls upon it, making it harder for us to process what changed.

“Our study provides an interesting counterpoint to many previous studies which suggested that pre-saccadic attention is always beneficial,” said Devarajan Sridharan, Associate Professor at CNS and corresponding author of the study.

In the PLOS Biology study, Priyanka Gupta, a PhD student in Prof. Sridharan’s lab, trained human volunteers to covertly monitor gratings (line patterns) presented on a screen without directly looking at them and to report when one tilted slightly.

“Importantly, the participants did this task just before their eyes moved in the pre-saccadic window. So, we were able to study the relationship between pre-saccadic attention and the detection of changes in the visual environment,” said Ms. Gupta.

A tracker was used to monitor their eye movements before, during and after their gaze fell on the object. “To our surprise, participants found it harder to detect the changes in the pre-saccadic window,” Ms Gupta said.

In the other study published in Science Advances, carried out with collaborators at Stanford University, the researchers used an unusual experiment – this time, to decouple attention from eye movements – in monkeys. Their goal was to tease out what is happening in the brain while these processes play out.

The monkeys had been trained on a counter-intuitive task called an “anti-saccade” task. Like the human study, the monkeys covertly monitored several gratings on a computer screen without directly looking at them. But when anyone grating tilted slightly, the monkeys had to look away from it instead of focusing more sharply on it. This helped the researchers delink the location of the monkey’s attention from the location where its gaze ultimately fell.

IISc said the researchers believe that uncovering such brain signatures can eventually point to what fails in attention disorders. “Discovering such mechanisms is vital for developing therapies for disorders like ADHD,” Prof. Sridharan said.

A view of the Indian Institute of Science building in Bengaluru. file photo
| Photo Credit: PTI

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath is among the five outstanding scientists and engineers who have been selected to receive the distinguished alumni awards of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for the year 2023.

The annual awards recognise exceptional contributions made by IISc alumni to their profession, society and the Institute. The nominations received are evaluated by a committee chaired by the Director of IISc.

Apart Mr. Somanath, this year’s awardees include D.N. Prahlad, Prof. K.K. Ramakrishnan, Prof. Mrinalini Chatta Rao and Dr. Dheepa Srinivasan. The awardees will be honoured at a ceremony to be held in December 2023.

Glory of Chandrayaan-3

Under Mr. Somanath’s leadership, ISRO carried out the third Indian lunar exploration mission named Chandrayaan-3, making India the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole and the fourth country to demonstrate a soft landing on the moon.

He previously served as the Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre as well as the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, both in Thiruvananthapuram.

Pioneering development of hardware and software products

Mr. D.N. Prahlad is the founder of Surya Software Systems Private Limited, Bengaluru. Prior to founding Surya, he played a key role in the growth of Infosys Technologies.

He is currently the Non-Executive Chairman of Surya Software Systems Private Limited, Surya Financial Technologies Private Limited and Surya Digitech Private Limited. He pioneered the development of indigenous hardware and software products for global markets in the pre-liberalisation era of the country.

Building the internet

Prof. K.K. Ramakrishnan is currently Distinguished Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, Riverside, USA. He has published over 250 papers and has 173 patents in his name.

He has made immense contributions to solving fundamental problems in building the internet, specifically in network interface design, congestion control, network virtualisation, and operating system support, impacting nearly all network adapters and operating system designs in the world today.

Researching molecular basis of cell signalling

Prof. Mrinalini Chatta Rao is Professor Emerita at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA.

She has pioneered research on elucidating the molecular basis of cell signalling, specifically on intestinal epithelial ion transport in health and diseases such as cystic fibrosis. She has also contributed to the most definitive textbook in the field of gastroenterology.

35 patents, 50 technologies

Dr. Dheepa Srinivasan is Chief Engineer at the Pratt & Whitney R&D Center on the IISc campus. She has over 35 patents in her name, and has developed more than 50 technologies and process applications that are now running in several gas turbines and steam turbines.

She is a pioneer in the area of metal 3D printing or additive manufacturing, and has developed several applications for metal laser additive manufacturing.

“We are extremely proud of the exemplary and meaningful contributions that these distinguished alumni have made to science and technology, as well as society. We hope that the stories of these alumni resonate as a source of inspiration for the entire IISc community,” Prof G Rangarajan, director, IISc said.