Category: In-Depth

The future of medicine

In May 2018, IIT Kharagpur set up India’s pioneering Bioelectronics Innovation Laboratory to develop futuristic battery-free implantable medical devices for the treatment of brain, nerve, muscle or spinal cord disorders that are untreatable by using standard medical practices. These medical devices will go a long way in providing affordable and reliable medical solutions. The laboratory will facilitate energy-efficient electronic system development, biocompatible packaging, bio-reliability assessment and animal testing rooms as a unified platform for an end-to-end intelligent medical system development.

Prof. Sudip Nag of the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering of IIT Kharagpur is heading the initiative. The present line of research targets subjects with blindness, limb paralysis, sensory-motor dysfunction, cognition-loss, Parkinson’s tremor, epileptic seizures, and even memory loss. The lab is also in the process of setting up collaborations with several hospitals and institutes in India and abroad. Recently, a Common Research and Technology Development Hub (CRTDH) on technologies for affordable healthcare has been set up at IIT Kharagpur that will be supporting the growth of precision manufacturing of innovative technologies through MSMEs. The bioelectronics lab will also be contributing to this venture. Here is Prof. Nag on bioelectronics and its future prospects:

 What is bioelectronics?

Bioelectronics is a new and emerging field in engineering where we are using novel and state-of-the-art electronic technology, medical science, and fusing them together to bring out innovative solutions in health care. Such solutions will help in the futuristic treatment of diseases that are otherwise not possible through standard medical practices or surgery.

Why is bioelectronics such an important field today?

It is very essential and important because we don’t have medical treatments available for certain critical diseases and conditions, such as brain damage, stroke-induced paralysis, and spinal cord injury to name a few. These do not have a direct solution in terms of standard medicine and surgery. In bioelectronics, we can use electronic solutions to bypass or restore certain functions in the body. We cannot cure blindness unless it is in the early stage. There can be no way to restore vision. There is no medicine for it. But bioelectronics can bring in electronic (or artificial) ways to substitute the function of natural organs at a coarse level.

Can you tell us about some actual uses of bioelectronics in restoring vision?

Of course. For example, we can put little mobile phone cameras outside the body, and those cameras can acquire external image signals; and then through the electronic antenna or coils, we can transfer the information to a chip that has been surgically implanted in the eyeball. This chip decodes the information and activates the remaining part of the eye. Remember, a blind person typically experiences a loss of vision due to partial damage to critical portions in the visual pathway to the brain. In other words, blindness can occur due to damage to specific portions in the eye, and not the entire eye. For example, there could be a corneal problem, a retinal tissue degeneration, or optic nerve damage, but hardly more than one are affected simultaneously in a majority of the cases. Using Bioelectronics we can target the diseased portion and replicate or bypass the damaged portion by using electronic waves. In corneal blindness, the eye is functional except for one layer of tissue, which blocks the light to enter into the eye. We are trying to bypass the cornea, put a chip inside that will project the light inside.

How can bioelectronics help in cases of paralysis?

Bioelectronics can also be used in the case of stroke-induced paralysis. The brain has several blood vessels and sometimes they rupture due to high blood pressure or degeneration of biological membranes. Stroke is caused due to the spillage of blood in the brain. The toxic chemicals carried by the blood affect neurons in the brain and possibly kill them in mass. However, despite a ruptured blood vessel, neural connectivity is present at a macro scale. The magnitude of the paralysis depends on the size of the clot or spillage of blood. Sometimes a paralysis is irreversible. And this is where bioelectronics comes into the picture.

For example, in the case of paralysis in the leg. When we walk, there is a certain rhythm of movement. One leg is advanced, the other is lifted up and gradually comes down. There is a synchronization of the limb movements of which we are not even conscious. This pattern gets distorted or dysfunctional after a stroke in the brain. However, the limbs do not become non-functional because of a stroke. Only the communication to the limbs from the brain is hampered.

Suppose one leg is affected by paralysis. In this case, we put sensors in the good leg and embed actuators in the damaged leg. The leg with which the brain can communicate is the sensor leg. The one that is paralysed is called the actuator leg. When we inject controlled electrical pulses with minute electrical shocks into concerned muscles, and this injection occurs in a certain sequence, it can mimic the actual walking pattern.

How far have these projects progressed?

So far as the Bionic Eye project is concerned, we have already started the chip development and we have a collaboration with Shankara Nethralaya in Chennai. The doctors are very enthusiastic about the solution.

So far as the other project is concerned, we have developed electrical stimulator devices that can go inside the body and we are now working on making them power-efficient. We target to reduce the dependence on batteries. Batteries, even those in pacemakers, have to be recharged or replaced along with the entire device. Therefore, instead of the battery, we thought of using modern wireless power transfer and super-capacitors or ultra-capacitors, which can charge and discharge for an infinite number of times virtually. But here there is a problem. The capacitors charged and discharged fast. This means we had to create devices that require very little power to operate and do not allow quick discharge.

We are thus trying to develop a system whereby we can put a power band on top the body, whereas the implant is located inside the body and, in a matter of minutes, we can completely charge the implantable super-capacitor. We have to make sure that the circuit or the electronics that is performing its task inside the body should consume very little power – in the range of nano-Watts to micro-Watts. In our lab, we are using electromagnetic and electrostatic energy transfer strategies to charge up the super-capacitors. There is no battery in our devices and all of our solutions for implantables are battery free. Even if there is a requirement of battery, we want to put it outside the body.

So resolving the problem of batteries is very important to bioelectronics, right?

Absolutely yes. We are working on energy transfer and harvesting schemes, and not just batteries. We are eliminating the use of batteries from an implant, which will possibly create a new wave in future. It is a combination of energy transfer, energy harvesting, and minimizing power consumption. These are our main focuses and prime targets to advance the field. In terms of biology, the choice of materials, parameters, bio-compatible coating strategies, and animal trials are very important. That is why we call it bioelectronics.

How is the Bioelectronics Innovation lab thinking of contributing to the Common Research and Technology Hub (CRTDH) recently set up at IIT Kharagpur?

CRTDH is a unique program that is getting realized at IIT Kharagpur through the supports received from DSIR, Government of India, and B.C. Roy Super-speciality Hospital. The program will particularly benefit Micro Small Medium Scale (MSME) industries in West Bengal and India, which are interested to commercialize affordable health-care related prototypes and technologies that are available at IIT Kharagpur. Bioelectronics Innovation Lab is going to contribute directly and immensely to this program through supports related to technology transfer, product validation, certification assistance process, and market placement under the aegis of the Institute.

 

 

Photograph and Video: Arnab Moitra

Banner design: Suman Sutradhar

Netting a windfall

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A bioactive product invented by a start-up incubated at IIT Kharagpur’s STEP (Science and Technology Entrepreneurs’ Park) is silently changing the face of aquaculture in Eastern Midnapore. ‘Mr Fish’, produced with the latest technology, is one-of-a-kind of product that not only increases the size of the fish produced in the least possible time but, and more importantly, enhances its taste and nutritional quality. Produced by Zelence Industries Pvt. Ltd. (www.myzelence.com), the start-up from IIT Kharagpur, the product has come as a boon to fish farmers in Bengal and neighbouring Orissa.

Both the states have seen a phenomenal increase in the demand of carp and shrimp in the past few years. In the riverine lowland areas of eastern Midnapore, where the product is being tried, farmers once felt helpless as large tracts of their land remained flooded for a sizeable part of the year. They now either use the water to undertake fish farming themselves for a few months or give their submerged lands on a contract-basis to farmers who carry out aquaculture. The result has been a booming business in fish.

However, unscientific farming practices along with high stocking density have led to a culture of fish farming where the quality of the product is mostly neglected. There are complaints from the consumers about the deteriorating taste of the cultivated fishes. The fishes also suffer from early decomposition. “So far, there has been no product available in the market that deals with these problems, enhances fish quality or stops the deterioration in taste. Most of the products deal with disease control in farming but no product till date ensures fish taste and quality. That is why Mr Fish is such a novelty,” says Prof. Jayanta Bhattacharya of the Department of Mining Engineering and School of Environmental Science and Engineering. Prof. Bhattacharya is one of the directors of Zelence.

Mr Fish is produced from natural bioactive molecules and some isolated and innovated probiotics. The listed components are Kelp extract, medicinal plant extract, Lactobaccillus plantatum, Lactobacillus acidophilus,etc. Of high liquid consistency, Mr Fish improves the feed conversion ratio, enhances particular amino acids, and regulates the control of uniform distribution of fats and proteins in fish cells that results in improved shine, storability and taste of fish.

“When used in the right quantity, within the same time and with the use of the same amount of food as before, the rate of growth and shine of the fish and shrimp are comparatively much better than that produced by fish farms that do not use our product. Mr Fish increases resistance power in fish, and enhances the quality and texture of fish by evenly distributing the fatty acid content and right amount of taste active components such as TMAO, glycins, alanine, monophosphates and so on, plus increasing the feed conversion ratio,” says Dr Bidus Kanti Das, Biotechnologist, who holds a PhD from IIT Kharagpur, and is a Director of Zelence. The prescribed quantity for carp is 60-100 ml per metric ton of feed and 120-200 ml for shrimp. Mr Fish has to be mixed well with the fish feed.

Mr. Biswajit Das, a fish farmer from Bhemua, Sabang, who is in this profession since 2002, and is currently cultivating in a 97 acre jheel/lake observed, “The taste is far better than in previous occasions, and this has been repeatedly reported by traders and consumers. The growth is now at an expected level. I would recommend Mr Fish to other farmers also”.

Pijush Kanti Bhanja, a fish farmer in Moyna, who used Mr Fish for a month and saw dramatic improvements said, “All the varieties of carp, particularly the Roopchand, in my farm have undergone a healthy increase in size. In fact, my neighbours, who have asked me for fish have told me that my fish tastes much better than those available in the market.”

Subhasish Bera, a farmer in Kishorepur who used Mr Fish for three months, reports, “I have needed comparatively less food this time for my fish. Besides, the taste of the fish is much better. There is a lot of oil in the fish as well.”

Prof. Bhattacharya says, “Traders who transport the fish are now more interested in selling the fish developed with Mr Fish because of better price and quantity. The quality improvement has increased the price of fish as well. During dull season, the produce that fetched Rs 50 a kilogram now fetch Rs 80 per kilogram. In a saturated market of fishes, distinctiveness attracts more buyers, steady market and better price. Zelence has made a difference for over the past one-and-a-half years.”

The firm first started testing the product in small ponds from 2015. “The product was matured in June 2018, when we released Mr Fish in the market. Now the product is used in Simlapal in Bankura, Moyna, Sabang, Narayangarh and some areas of Midnapore and the reports are exciting,” says Dr Das. The fish from East Midnapore go to north Bengal, Ranchi and even Bhubaneswar.

At a time when there is talk of rural distress across India, the increased prosperity from aquaculture is reflected in the growing number of schools and other amenities in the Eastern Midnapore region. There is growing interest and enquiry about Mr Fish from farmers of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring Bangladesh.

Zelence has several other innovations to its credit. All of these have been commercialized successfully in the area of nanotechnology, bioactive molecules, microbial consortium for application in agriculture, animal husbandry and environmental engineering. Zelence is being incubated at STEP since 2017. It is one of the many successful start-ups incubated at IIT Kharagpur. One among these successes is Capillary Technologies, which is a software product company providing cloud-based Omnichannel Customer Engagement, eCommerce platform and related services for retailers and brands.

(For more information on Zelence: +91-7001564058)

Banner design: Suman Sutradhar

Secrets from Deccan Traps

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In 1993 filmmaker Steven Spielberg told us an exciting story of the dinosaurs and their creation from the blood of mosquitoes in the Jurassic era carrying dinosaur DNA. The DNA was so critical to the story that we saw John Hammond, a lead character, carry it in his walking stick all through the movie. That was few drops of blood and now researchers have found an entire world of rock-dwelling microbes (bacteria and archaea) way back in time from an era when the Earth’s crust was in its early stage of evolution (2.5 billion years to 65 million years).

Life started on our planet in a much hostile environment and even before the great oxidation event (which occurred nearly 2.5 billion years ago). Since its inception, single-celled life forms or microbes have been adapting to the external threats in the environment such as volcanic eruptions, tectonic movements, asteroid shower, ice ages or any other extinction level events thus surviving extreme environments; while simultaneously evolving themselves and leading the planet’s evolution. Today scientists are exploring the depths of the Earth to find traces of such microbes, their life (limits of life, their adaptation) and contribution to planetary and perhaps extra-planetary processes (including carbon and other elements cycling).

Researchers from IIT Kharagpur have discovered microbial (bacterial and archaeal) life forms which were trapped at depths beneath the Deccan Traps, up to 1500 metres below the surface. The Deccan Traps, which cover a large part of the Deccan plateau, originated from massive volcanic activities nearly 65 million years ago and believed to be responsible for mass extinction on our planet. What surprised the research team from the Institute’s Dept. of Biotechnology was the presence of the bacteria and archaea more than a kilometre below the solid igneous rocks of the Deccan Traps without much of nutritional resources (such as water or other materials to feed on).

Microbes are being explored for in several regions in the world with high seismic activities such as San Andreas in California, USA or in South Africa or Germany. The activity of drilling boreholes in seismically active areas was started in India in the late 1960s’ to study the geophysical properties of the rocks for various civil and structural reasons. In the seismic zone of the Koyna region of Maharashtra (well known for its Reservoir Triggered Seismicity or RTS), 9 such exploratory boreholes to a depth of ~1.5 km were drilled by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India.

In 2014, Prof. Pinaki Sar from the Dept. of Biotechnology at IIT Kharagpur initiated this path-breaking research to study the geomicrobiological properties of these rocks which remained disconnected from the Sun-lit surface environment rich in oxygen, water, organics and light to drive photosynthesis. Rock cores retrieved from 3 such exploratory boreholes were sampled for this geomicrobiological investigation.

Recently, Prof. Sar’s team confirmed the presence of traces of bacterial life forms through the Deccan Traps upto 3 km depth of the boreholes which were touched the granitic basement formed as continental crust billions of years ago. The Deccan volcanism started about 65 million years ago and may have continued till 60 million years ago. However, these volcanic activities happened with several thousand years of time gap which might have allowed early microorganisms to occupy such extreme habitats. In spite of the severe scarcity of nutrients and prevalence of recurrent extremities, how these organisms managed to sustain their survival and eventually populated the entire underworld of continental crust remains an open question. The researchers suggest that the microbes may have moved down to the lower strata of the Earth through water flow through fractures (formed due to seismic activities) formed in geologic past.

“We cannot confirm at the moment whether the organisms are still alive though we have been able to make the endolithic cells grow in as enriched laboratory cultures”, however, there could be chances of contamination during the process of handling the rocks or downstream activities” added Prof. Pinaki Sar.

These microorganisms also termed as extremophiles have adapted to survive in a biologically energy poor system i.e. lack of sunlight, water, oxygen and other gases. It could be possible they were harvesting the geogenic energy of the Earth by oxidizing hydrogen or carbon dioxide derived from the inner core of the crust.

“Our study has proved that the common perception of survival of life and the scientific findings differ and these deep biosphere microorganisms could give us an idea about how best other carbon and inorganic sources can be used,” said Prof. Sar.

So can the organisms convert carbon dioxide or methane molecules to more useful products? Maybe scientists can pursue further research to explore the features of these deep Earth microbes in addressing issues such as pollution, drug discovery, new nutrients or biocatalysts, alternate energy resources or finding life in another planet. It could also be possible that deep life enthusiasts propose an enthralling idea in the likeness of John Hammond, only future can tell. “Our study showed that even in energetically highly constrained, deep crystalline igneous Earth crust of Deccan Traps, microbial life evolved and persisted,” said Prof Sar.

“Study of microbial life and its diversity deep inside the Earth has engaged the attention of scientists for a variety of reasons including finding the temperature limit of life. Sampling the fluids and rocks at extreme conditions of temperature and pressure requires access to the deep, dark realms of the Earth. Studies on deep life, therefore, bring about an exciting new perspective to scientific deep drilling programmes that are usually undertaken to study earth processes. This first report on ancient granitic and basaltic rock samples in the Deccan Traps will set the pace for new interdisciplinary research in the country”, said Dr Sukanta Roy, Project Director at the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Borehole Geophysics Research Laboratory, Karad who supervised the scientific drilling investigations.

These exciting explorations not only expand our knowledge of deep life but along with other international studies provides new insights into ‘planetary habitability’, allowing us to gain a better understanding on how life emerged on our planet and if life persists in the Martian subsurface and other planetary bodies.

This is the first time that such deep life underneath the Earth has been explored from India and by an initiative led entirely by Indian scientists, opined the proud faculty from IIT Kharagpur whose research findings have been reported in Scientific Reports.

Photo Credit: Suman Sutradhar, Laboratory of Prof. Pinaki Sar

 

 

 

 

Smartphone App to Aid Smoking Cessation

Smartphone applications in the present times are the popular source of information on market intelligence. In the last decade, these gadgets have been revolutionizing the consumer world by replacing our wallets and bringing services such as cabs, restaurants, shops, IoT based smart homes at our doorsteps. These are also contributing to our fitness regime. But smartphones can give a lot more insights, they can tell what we are doing at the moment, our habits and the associated health hazards. This is what researchers at IIT KGP have confirmed through their latest innovation.

A research team led by Prof. Ram Babu Roy at IIT KGP’s Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship (RMSoEE), has developed a prototype of sensor-based activity tracking kit which can monitor the activities in daily living. Further, a Smartphone-based application is under development which will analyze the tracking kit data and send alerts for an unhealthy lifestyle and suitable recommendation. The innovation is a sensor-based technology for automated recognition of addictive and depressive behaviour.

While India is reaching a critical threshold for killer diseases like cancer and depression, there is an emerging need for a shift from sick care to preventive care. This issue can be addressed at a faster rate through e-healthcare considering the inadequate availability of professional caregivers and medical practitioners.

“The scenario led us to explore the most commonly used gadget and develop the much-required technology which can be used for providing interventions in near real-time via mobile app to promote cessation from addictive habits,” remarked Saurabh Singh Thakur, a research scholar at IIT KGP RMSoEE.

The technology is capable of producing a daily activity chart based on body movements especially of the hands and predict daily functions such as eating or drinking water or behavioural tendencies such as smoking or consumption of alcohol. The application can also monitor call and message logs and internet usage on the smartphone and alert the user or the caregiver regarding cell phone usage. Prolonged usage data would indicate poor sleeping habit thus predicting possible health hazards.

“We did a pilot study over a period of time capturing data on activities of daily living with the help of a mobile app developed for android phones. The different activities captured are a marker of various physiological and psychological health. The data collected was dependent on the time of the day when it was captured thus demarcating the normal and abnormal activities. Further, data analysis is being carried out to identify various behavioral activities and patterns to do behavioural profiling of individuals. This could lead to enabling of personalized e-healthcare services through a smartphone,” said Prof. Ram Babu Roy, who is leading this innovation at IIT KGP RMSoEE.

The activity tracking kit has been developed using a 6-axis inertial sensor along with a heart rate sensor which could be worn on the wrist. A pilot study was conducted with four participants. Their hand movement pattern was recorded for around 5 minutes for smoking and non-smoking intervals each, using this kit. Preliminary analysis of the data showed that there exists a periodicity in the data during the smoking episode. During the non-smoking interval, the sensor signals are random and do not exhibit such periodicity.

Further data collection with a greater number of participants in different environments, data pre-processing, analysis, training, model generation, and testing is under progress. The research team collected GPS data as well for locational information and physical movement. There is a correlation between physical activities during the day and psychological health. Thus, such data analysis would further help in strengthening the mental health and wellness of the user.

The need of such a technology can be more emphasized at the wake of the reports by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Mental Health Survey (NMHS). While according to ICMR, new cancer cases or its incidence in India are estimated to grow by 25% by 2020, NMHS 2015-16 reports that every sixth person in India needs mental health intervention of some sort.

The prototype developed at IIT KGP is initially focused on smoking habits. However, the research encompasses the scope of predicting depressive behavior as well. The team has published several peer-reviewed papers in international journal and conferences of repute. They are working towards filing a patent for further commercialization of the product.

“At the Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, we encourage entrepreneurial minds of the engineering students. It is the first school of its kind in India and we focus on incubating innovations into start-ups. Considering the field reports and further test results and preferred career choices of the innovators, such innovations are quite capable of creating new markets,” affirmed Prof. Partha Pratim Das, Head, RMSoEE, IIT KGP.

Smart Diagnostics for Pulmonary Healthcare

Business Standard (IANS)   Business Standard (PTI)    Deccan Chronicle   Biospectrum     Outlook    Quint     Devdiscourse

Researchers at the Dept. of Electronics and Electrical Communications Engineering at IIT Kharagpur have developed a decision support system to diagnose malignant and other diseased tissues in the lungs. While one system can refer to CT scan images to detect lung nodules and test them for the possibility of malignancy, a second software can detect Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) patterns in chest HRCT images.

“Biopsy especially in the lungs is a critical process, hence conducted only after initial medical analysis is done by expert radiologists. The developed systems use noninvasive and comparatively affordable methods of image analysis that would aid the radiologists to identify malignancy by reading growth in the lung nodules. The other system will help identify interstitial disease patterns in HRCT images depicting the lung tissue texture,” explained lead researcher Prof. Sudipta Mukhopadhyay.

“The novelty of the system lies in its India-centric reference point i.e. the medical image scan database used for reference is sought from the Indian patient population. We worked with Prof. Khandelwal and his team from PGIMER Chandigarh for data ground truth and clinical data. Also, foreign database such as LIDC-IDRI and MedGIFT ILD database has been used. The biopsy cases were primarily taken from PGIMER,” explained researcher Shrikant Mehre.

The malignancy detecting tool detects the lung nodule, segment the nodule, and provides a way to modify segmentation, retrieve similar nodules from the database with their report and assess the chance of malignancy of the query nodule based on the retrieval results. The ILD tool is developed by incorporating feedback from expert radiologists to make it easy to use for non-tech savvy clinicians. The software is equipped with necessary modules such as automatic segmentation of lung boundary and pathological region within lung area, provision to modify the boundary, retrieving similar segments from the database with their report and assess the probability of the pathological segment to be a particular ILD category based on the retrieval results. The mapping of disease is performed by doctors based on the ILD pattern and clinical inputs.

“We have successfully tested both software systems at AIIMS Delhi. Prof. Ashu Seith Bhalla and her team provided the neutral test site required for the validation. Currently, lung nodule detection rate and classification rate is 86% and 87%, respectively, and the success rate for ILD classification is 84%. We are working towards further improvements in order to conduct clinical trials on bigger sample sizes,” said another researcher Mandar Kale.

With the growing cases of cancer and other respiratory diseases in India, the need for skilled radiologists is expected to grow exponentially in near future. Budding radiologists will be highly benefited in learning from previous images stored in Picture Archival and Communication System (PACS) and reports in Radiological Information System (RIS) on their own and to help practicing radiologists in differential diagnosis using the CBIR based Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system.

The research has been reported in more than 13 international journals and 19 international conferences through its various stages of progress.

The Healing Ozone

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While the world is debating on climate change and global warming, researchers at IIT Kharagpur have given the environmental evangelists a reason to rejoice. A research team from the Center of Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Science (CORAL) at IIT Kharagpur have come up with new data confirming that the Antarctic Ozone Hole is on a healing path.

The researchers have collected data from 1979 to 2017, which shows though there was a loss in saturation of Ozone since 1987 over the Antarctic; the saturation of loss at 12-21 km has significantly reduced over the period 2001–2017.

This is the first of its kind research providing detailed long-term (four decades) analysis of Antarctic ozone loss saturation in terms of its first occurrence, timing, spatial differences, vertical spread, inter-annual changes and temporal evolution using high-resolution ozonesondes and satellite measurements inside the vortex for the said period.

“We have observed over the past four decades the Ozone layer depletion peaked during winters each year except the warm winters of 1988 and 2002. However, our analysis shows a clear reduction in the frequency of occurrence of ozone loss saturation over the period 2001–2017 consistently throughout various datasets. This reveals the emergence of an important milestone in ozone recovery,” confirmed Prof. Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath from IIT KGP who along with Pankaj Kumar, Prijitha J. Nair and P. C. Pandey from the IIT KGP CORAL team conducted the study which has recently been reported in the prestigious journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science published by Springer Nature.

Data were collected for various altitudes from Autumn to Spring, over the decades, for stations across Antarctica, including measurements from the Indian station Maitri. The reduction of ozone loss saturation in recent years ranged from 20% to 60% across the data spread.

Is this going to affect the existing protocols and regulations for industrial emissions of ozone-depleting substances? Prof. J. Kuttippurath believes that the recovery indicated in the loss saturation layer, robustly suggests that the Montreal Protocol has definitely saved the ozone layer and climate of the southern hemisphere. Since there are already significant changes in the southern hemispheric climate owing to the Antarctic ozone loss, the recovery from loss saturation is very likely to affect that.

The ozone recovery process is very slow and it will take a few decades to get back to the pre-ozone hole levels. However, the emergence of ozone recovery is very clear even at the altitudes where the near-complete ozone loss occurs”, adds Prof. P. C. Pandey of CORAL, who is also the founder director of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research.

From the lab to the hospital

Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Head, School of Medical Science and Technology, talks about the thrust areas, ongoing programmes, research, achievements and long-term goals of one of the youngest and most ambitious departments of IIT Kharagpur

Could you talk about the genesis of SMST?

The department started its journey in 2001 against a background where technology was progressively coming into the domain of medical world. It was felt that a unique school or department should be established that would work at the interface between medicine and technology. A medical school would be bothered about the clinical aspects of the study, not necessarily on the technology that goes behind medical devices. On the other hand, an engineering school classically is not equipped to take up the responsibility. An interdisciplinary department was required. And that is how SMST came to be in 2001.

What are the ongoing academic programs/courses of SMST?

The flagship programme of this school is MMST or the three-year Masters in Medical Science and Technology, an interdisciplinary program, which is first of its kind in India. This is a unique program where medical graduates, i.e. MBBS, take up a course in medical technology. The first few batches ran successfully and this motivated us to expand the scope of the department. Subsequently, an MTech programme started in medical imaging and informatics as a number of Faculty members were working in that area. This programme still continues but we will soon replace this program with one on Biomedical Engineering from next year. The idea is that postgraduate-level education need not be a super-specialization in medical imaging and informatics. There are so many other areas that can be clubbed under Biomedical Engineering. This is a standard, highly recognized Masters programme, considered all around the world as a very lucrative one, including in India, and we felt it was the right time to explore this area.

Apart from this, we have been exploring international tie-ups for developing joint programmes. We are in the final stages of tying up with some top universities with whom we are about to offer the programmes jointly, i.e., joint academic programme plus jointly supervised thesis work. These will be Masters-level programmes.

Over the years, we have felt that medical technology-based work is not complete unless you have a clinical connection. Technological development should go from bench to bedside, that is, from the laboratory to the hospital. We also have to learn a lot from the needs of the clinicians who are actually serving the patients. That is why we have started collaborations with many leading medical colleges and hospitals. One structured programme is the joint education and research programme with Tata Medical Centre (TMC) at Kolkata. From 2018, we started 3 joint MSc-PhD programmes in collaboration with Tata. The entire academics is looked after by IIT KGP, but TMC is providing its expertise in teaching, research and access to the labs and data necessary to do medical research. The three areas are molecular medical microbiology, nuclear medicine and medical physics.

This year we selected students through a highly competitive entrance exam. We are happy with the students and they are exceptionally bright. They are the future generation medical technologists. They are from a wide background like chemistry, physics, biology. They are not necessarily doctors. We have to understand that the entire support system in the medical world is heavily dependent on medical scientists who may not always be medical doctors by training.

Are there courses for qualified doctors other than the MMST?

For qualified doctors, we have started a special programme with Tata Medical Centre – a highly advanced certification programme on clinical oncology. We have selected 10 junior doctors from TMC this year who will be participating in an advanced research program. Doctors usually do MD, DM etc. after graduating. But they can now undertake super-specialization in the niche topic of clinical oncology research with at least one supervisor from IIT KGP and the other from Tata Medical Centre. They are not required to stay on campus. There is a designated time during which they visit IIT KGP and interact with faculty member and team supervisors. This is a dynamic programme and we are trying increase the number of such flexible programmes. Doctors trained by SMST will help us translate our dream of making the transition from lab to hospital.

What are the other programs run by the school?

Apart from this there are the usual research programmes run by the Institute, such as MS and PhD programs where students are drawn from all backgrounds. Medical Science and technology is such an interdisciplinary area that people from all backgrounds can contribute. Even for MTech in Biomedical Engineering we have not put any restrictions on the UG programme. Someone who has done mechanical engineering can take up biomechanics as a scope of research/Masters programme. Someone who has done Computer Science can use big data analytics and machine learning to solve problems in the clinical setting. So we are quite flexible.

Is there a larger vision behind SMST’s programs and activities?

We are trying to internationalize our program as much as possible. Hence we are tying up with hospitals all around the world. We are also at a critical juncture since our own medical college and hospital is about to begin early next year. As the SMST Head, it is my vision is to integrate the ongoing research activities of SMST with that of the hospital. That is where all our hypotheses, technology development, research, scientific understanding will be validated and brought to the benefit of patients. Not only that, we are also bringing a large number of specialist doctors from all around the world to be a part of our hospital. We are going to leverage on their presence on campus.

What are the thrust areas of SMST?

Our faculty is diverse and this is reflected in the research. Some of our faculty members are doctors, others from basic sciences and engineering. We work as a team. The thrust areas a. Microfluidics and Point of Care Diagnostics, b. Multimodal Medical Imaging & Image Processing, c. Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine, d. Stem cells and Bio-Materials, and Signal Transduction, Proteomics and reproductive health, and e. Cancer Biology & Public Health.

They can be broadly divided into diagnostics and therapeutics. Diagnostics is about diagnosing diseases and therapeutics is about delivering the treatment which may require medicines, or medical devices. So development of devices, drugs etc. fall under this category. One particular focus is cancer detection and management. Lots of faculty members and students are working in this area. My own thrust area is affordable diagnostics. Instead of using costly diagnostic methods, we have devised simple, low cost devices essentially made from pieces of paper or plastic where, with a drop of blood, saliva or urine, one can do a large number of tests at low cost almost immediately. Instead of bringing the patient to the hospital, one can bring these handheld medical devices to the hospital to get the diagnostic test done. This is called point-of-care diagnostics.

What are the recent accomplishments of your department?

Our students are engaged in collaborative research and internship programmes with top medical device companies or top universities throughout the globe. And out all other departments, I believe SMST possibly has the strongest visibility internationally. Several international awards have been won by students and the Faculty. Our students are DAAD and Fullbright fellows. Our Faculty members are fellows of the prestigious national academies of science. I have been a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award, am a fellow of all national academies of science and engineering. I am the JC Bose National Fellow Institute Chair Professor and was recently awarded fellowship of the Americal Physical Society as well as the Royal Society of Chemistry.

As a department we are a strong unit, but we need to grow further. We have recently recruited very bright young faculty members, most of them are doing research in the interface of fundamental biology with clinical application – immunology, cardiac sciences for example. I could mention Dr Gayatri Mukherjee, Prafulla Shukla, and Nishant Chakravarty as the latest entrants to the Faculty. Dr Chakravaty is an alumnus of the department and a flag-bearer. He was the MMST topper and did his PhD abroad. He works on research interfacing clinical aspects with medical technology, also on stem cells, maternal and child health.

Since we are not yet a large unit, each Faculty has a lab to his or her own. We are going to aggressively recruit new faculty and want to recruit members who work at the interface of medical science and engineering.

Are there any projects close to your heart?

Our vision is to use deep science leading to sustainable technology for public welfare. There are two Imprint projects under my investigation, both involving affordable diagnostics. Affordable healthcare, as you know, is a mission of our institute. We are in the final stages of getting a large project whereby technology developed by us will be transferred to medium and small scale industries. They will create an ecosystem that will make practical devices implementable in the medical world. SMST will act as the Centre of Research for Technology development that will allow small scale industries to incubate and then transfer what happens in the lab to practical life. There are innumerable Startups that make devices and diagnostics but these are not validated. We are, for the first time, going to bridge this gap by developing a unique tech hub that will be fully funded by the govt.

Are there any notable affordable healthcare products made by SMST?

Yes, there are two. One is paper based microfluidic device which have small channels in the paper. Blood dropped in this device will go through the channels and react with reagents. A change of colour will happen if there is a particular disease. The change of colour signal is recorded by a camera and this information is digitally processed. In case of blood glucose level, haemoglobin, bilirubin, these are calibrated against the image data and the information is transferred to a smart phone. These are inexpensive devices. Anyone with a pricking device can do this. This is ‘colorimetric detection’.

The other uses a similar technology. It is called a Lab on a CD. By centrifugal force, the sample of blood, saliva or urine, whichever is being tested, will go radially outwards and react with certain chemicals. Here we are using electrochemical detection. The change of electrical signals or impedance will signal the result of the test. We are trying to implement this in extreme rural settings – places where there is no power supply or refrigeration. This is called extreme point of care diagnostics.

Step on the gas!

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The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) has been an immensely successful government program. Launched in May 2016, it aimed to safeguard the health of women and children by providing 5 crore LPG connections in the next 3 years (2016-2019) to BPL families with the support of Rs 1600 to each family. The government has recently decided to enhance the target to 8 crore LPG connections. The time period has been extended to 2020.

However, there have been several practical difficulties in the implementation of the program. For example, the fact that genuinely poor households were left out of the Socio-Economic Caste Survey on which the BPL listing was based (the new government order includes several other socio-economic categories). The scheme also spread more easily in some states, such as Uttarakhand, Bihar and Gujarat than in the others, particularly in the Northeast.

An IIT Kharagpur team of researchers, led by Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, have devised a decision support system focussing on PMUY for maximizing (optimizing) the number of LPG connections, including BPL households. A decision support system (DSS) is a computer program that that helps in making sound rational decisions using mathematical programming and operation research techniques.

This approach is first of its kind for analysis of a national level energy policy. The DSS uses mixed integer linear programming to mathematically formulate the policy using input parameters, decision variables and their relationships. The input parameters are, namely, distributing capacity of an LPG dealer, subsidised cylinders available per connection, number of households, and LPG penetration required. The IIT Kharagpur researchers have analysed different scenarios varying the input parameters mentioned.

The mathematical model has found the optimum number of total (BPL) connections required in a region, number of dealerships that need to be commissioned in a region over the policy time frame. This model also incorporates long term goals of the Central government towards overall LPG coverage in the country.

This type of mathematical modelling of a policy can be used as a reference for mathematical modelling of other policies. The team at IIT Kharagpur, whose other members included Mr Shubham Aggarwal (Dual Degree student, now with Schlumberger) and Mr Sudhanshu Kumar (M.Tech student, now with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, India) has used Software IBM ILOG CPLEX. The software is widely used in operation research domain to solve large scale real time linear programming problems.

Prof. Tiwari says, “Decision support system for such policies can provide us the exact values of important parameters over the prescribed policy time period, which in turn will help us to take important measures to ascertain the proper functioning (monitoring) of the policy towards the desired goal.”

Despite all the interventions at the state and national level, LPG penetration above 99% is still a milestone to be achieved. PMUY is a flagship policy to attain that mile stone. “In our problem, we have maximized the total number of connections over the specified timeframe of PMUY. This is subjected to the constraint of reaching the stipulated number of connections by the time period mentioned,” says Shubham Aggarwal, a Dual Degree student and member of the IIT Kharagpur team. The model analysed the policy for the remaining time period of 28 months (Jan 2017–May 2019) or 124 weeks for the initial target before the recent expansion of the time frame till 2020.

The IIT Kharagpur team has done sensitivity analysis with the mathematical model i.e. change in a decision variable with respect to the change in parameter. For example, it was found that if the maximum connections offered per week changed from 25,000 per week to 200,000 per week, the total number of connections increases and converges towards a total value of 82.16 million connections, while maintaining all other constraints and parameters intact.

The DSS shows not only the increment in the number of household connections in each state and Union territory over the policy time frame, but also the critical region that contributes most in that zone. In the west zone it is Maharashtra, in the southern zone Tamil Nadu, in the north zone Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan (the two contribute to more than half of the total LPG connections), and in the east zone Bihar and West Bengal had the highest number of connections. The government can pay special attention to regions critical to LPG penetration, such as Assam in the North-Eastern zone, in order to achieve 100% BPL household penetration, which is the ultimate goal of Indian government.

This kind of DSS can be developed for various federal and state level policies for various commodities like solar panels distributions, agricultural commodities and so on to achieve both long and short term targets of government by monitoring their real time implementation over the policy time frame and controlling all the effective parameters related to the policy. This will help countries especially developing countries to reach their targets optimally in terms of cost, time and quality.

*Pictures have been sourced from http://www.pmujjwalayojana.com/

Harvesting the Oceans

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IIT Kharagpur and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have signed an MoU on October 11, 2018 at New Delhi to facilitate cooperation in research and education between the two institutions. NTNU is an expert in Hydro Power, Ocean Modelling, Deep Sea Resources and Marine Technology which will be key areas of focus under this MoU.

The two institutions shall seek to promote mobility of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, joint research activities and publications, cross-participation in seminars and academic meetings and exchange of academic materials and academic publications. Further, the two institutions will also explore opportunities for special short-term academic programs. The MoU was signed by Prof. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, Deputy Director of IIT KGP and Dr. Gunnar Bovim, Rector, NTNU. Nils Ragnar Kamsvåg, Ambassador of Norway to India was also present on this occasion.

“IIT KGP has three departments and centers working in these areas including Dept. of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Center for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Science and the Dept. of Civil Engineering with its core areas in Hydrodynamics, Coastal, Marine and Hydraulic Engineering and Wave Modelling. Other areas would include Structural and Petroleum Engineering, Reliability of Infrastructure Systems, Geology and Geophysics,” said the Deputy Director Prof. Bhattacharyya, who is also a domain expert.

Norway is striding towards expanding collaboration between India and Norway in marine and maritime research and education. Following the meeting of the prime ministers of India and Norway in April this year, the Norwegian Embassy has been wanting to engage with top educational institutions in India.

“Countries known for their clean energy initiatives have made significant advancements in marine technologies and harvesting the ocean for various forms of energy including renewable energy. In India we are generating about 15% of our electricity from hydroelectric power, however, the share of this clean and renewable source of energy needs to be increased substantially. Considering the shifting Himalayan terrain, we have to look for alternate resources and innovations in generating hydroelectric power” opined Prof. Baidurya Bhattacharya, Dean, International Relations and faculty at the Dept. of Civil Engineering.

Both IIT KGP and NTNU have transdisciplinary academic and research programs encompassing science and technology, medicine, social sciences to arts and fine arts and more areas of common interest will be explored in future.

“Further to this, we have also initiated discussions on reciprocal student exchange and internships. Graduate students from NTNU will visit IIT KGP in 2019 as part of the Indo-Norwegian project to carry out a part of their master’s thesis work,” confirmed Prof. Mohammad Saud Afzal, faculty at IITKGP and alumnus of NTNU.

Hit the road, but carefully

An IIT Kharagpur road safety audit shows that unless speed is regulated, good mobility could mean more accidents

If worn-out, crater-ridden, submerged stretches are the only image that flash in your mind when you think of ‘killer roads’, you are just monsoon-weary. Killer roads are also those gleaming blacktop surfaces stretching out for miles in between cities, towns, or even within cities, that lure motorists into putting that little bit of extra pressure on the accelerator.

Speed, obviously, kills. With the rapid modernization of road infrastructure, India is thus seeing an alarming increase in the number of fatalities on road. The number of road accidents in India today is the highest ever in recorded history -a 53.9% increase over the last decade, and nearly a ten-fold increase since 1970.

“We have made the surface good for speed, but the associated geometry is not able to support high speed. Also, the people using the roads are unruly and traffic  operations are happening in a haphazard manner,” says Prof. Sudeshna Mitra of the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kharagpur.

Prof. Mitra specializes in Traffic and Transportation Engineering, with an emphasis on Road Traffic Safety, Data Analytics in Traffic and Transportation, and Sustainable Transportation Planning and Design. Widely consulted by the government and private organizations on transport and road safety matter, Prof. Mitra and her team has recently submitted their report on “Road Safety Audit of NH60 and NH117 and capacity building on Road Safety issues in the State of West Bengal”.

The result of this study, in fact, confirms Prof. Mitra’s statement. Of the two National Highways in the study – NH60 and NH117 – the former has a greater “average operating speed”. In other words, NH60 ensures greater ‘mobility’ – a factor that delineates the importance of the road (the other being ‘accessibility’). However, the “…number of crashes and fatal crashes are also more on NH60 with a very high percentage of head-on collisions,” says the report.

“Speed is a problem,” says Prof. Mitra. “We have seen that speed and the number of accidents/fatalities are not in a linear relationship. For example, if the chance of fatality at 30 km/hr is 10%, at a speed of 60 km/hr, the probability does not double. The chance of fatality is about  80%,” she argues on the basis of the findings of the speed management report of OECD/ECMT Transport Research Centre (2006).

Of course, the condition of the roads and the stopping time matters for safe operations. And this is where the technicalities kick in. For example, even for placing temporary barriers, one has to take into consideration the technicalities of their placement such that appropriate meandering of traffic could take place resulting in speed reduction. The police in this regard would need to consult PWD engineers to man the road operations.Prof. Mitra suggests greater technical consultation – at the planning stage itself. “For new roads, we should start audit from alignment planning, detailed design, and during the construction. For existing roads, we can concentrate on the existing problems and propose how to operate them better.”

For both NH60 and NH117, Prof. Mitra and her team have provided their feedback and are now hoping that they are implemented. Apart from drawing attention to sharp horizontal curves with restricted visibility, unsignalized intersections, they have also highlighted the role of vehicular size and pedestrian behaviour in causing accidents.

But her insistent plea is the need to regulate speed and implement speed zoning on highways. This is especially needed when a highway is passing through a town or built-up area where the functional characteristics of the road changes, and high interaction with pedestrians is expected. Prof. Mitra argues for proper recording of accident data. “We get an idea of the design deficiency by assessing whether it is a head-on collision or rear end collision,” she says. Prof. Mitra is happy that the authorities are more pro-active than before about road safety and they are willing to seek out the academia for consultation. However, implementation is still weak, she says. Also important is evaluation after the recommended measures are implemented.