Why its still tough to do science in India

The scenario has certainly changed and improved since I was a graduate student, there is no doubt about it. But when I put things in perspective with other countries where our young minds migrate to advance their careers in science, I find a stark backwardness the way we do it here. It also explains why those young scientists, in most cases, do not want to return even when our government is offering lots of doles to attract them back. 

One of the main reasons for lagging behind is consistent lack in the supply of some of the basic items required to conduct the experiments. Take for example, if a student needs an antibody to quickly scan whether his hypothesis stand true or not, he needs to wait for at least one month after placing the order. Lack of timely availability of key materials delays things and increases the frustration and disenchantment of students. 

Now lets see why does this delay occur? The delay in procuring these basic items, in most cases, is because we do not manufacture these research materials here locally and for most of these items we are dependent upon other advanced countries. That is one the many reasons why things get delayed. I do agree that some of the items do get delivered in a couple of weeks time, but most of the items do not.

Another factor is ordering process in which the order itself takes two to three weeks or more to be processed due to apathy of our colleagues in the university offices. Either the said apathy is due not lack of understanding why and how importantly a particular item is needed, or its due to a deep rooted inertia and slow pace of working on files or deliberate attempt not to expedite the process. There may be many other reasons locally at other places, all of which may not be compressed in one blog. And these things cause further unnecessarily delay.

I have noticed another serious thing in research material procurement, and that is related with how much we pay for these items? It is exorbitant double or triple amount of money that we pay as compared to their price in those countries from where the items are procured.The reasons why we pay that much includes shipping charges, which is some times much more than the cost of the material shipped, import duty, taxes and profit margin of the vendor procuring the material for the scientist. 

No doubt that Government is trying to enhance the funding in science education and research and this investment is indeed encouraging and appreciable yet the pace and quality of research has not improved as expected. There are many bottlenecks which create hurdle in realizing the true potential of our young minds.

What needs to be done in this regard? I think to increase the pace and quality of our scientific research we must manufacture and create the material at home. We must encourage entrepreneurship so that investment can come in establishing companies to generate and make available research items such as antibodies, cell culture products, cells, and related consumables needed in a lab. For this government would be required to make clear policy of promoting such activity. In doing so proper guidelines of international standard are must so that we can assure the quality of the products. The country like China has done so much in so little time in this area, and it is showing in the quality of research and the quality and quantity of research papers that they publish in international journals. We must not lag behind and should take it with utmost urgency or we may miss the flight.

Next, we must create labs and lab products of international quality, train and hire our youths in these labs, create an efficient scientific work culture, make the science more lucrative as a career option so that a science graduate gets handsome payment and job option when he steps out with a degree. This will ensure that our youth do not look to go abroad to further their career in science and we loose them for ever.

I do not know, at this time, who will take these steps and many other things necessary to take India to another level of scientific prudence and productivity for which we have been known. But, as a scientist and educator we must discuss and deliberate at various fora, so that these words reach right ears. Indeed, we have had a rich scientific culture which needed to be revived and advanced. At least 

Scientific Innovations of Next Decade

As humans we always get enthralled by future predictions. Many seers, astrologers, tarot readers and fortune tellers live by their profession as many queue in front of them willing to know what is in store for them.  We all know Nostradamus and have read about his “prophecies” about various global events, or at least their correlations. But that may not hold true when it comes to predicting what will be discovered or invented scientifically, say in next decade, which will change how we live and many things will become a thing of past.

Just think of it, could our parents tell, when they were kid, that they would speak to a person thousands of miles away looking at them at the same time. The communication technology has innovated and developed so fast that it was indeed unimaginable just a decade or so back.

The medical field has also advanced dramatically, especially in the last couple of decade that many fatal diseases are now manageable, if not treatable. At least we now know enough that we can prevent many of them.

So how can we predict what would be innovated or discovered in science in next decade?

Image source:denovodrugs.com

Thomson Reuters have come up with a list of ten top innovations of the next decade based upon the analysis of patents and scientific data. Based upon the citation ranking and global patent data they identified ten emerging scientific front and top ten patent fields. From this data they identified ‘hot spots’ of innovation that will breakthrough of tomorrow.

1. According to their prediction the solar energy would become the main source of energy on earth as technology of harvesting sun light and converting it to usable energy by masses will improve significantly.

2. Higgs Boson project has been in much discussion lately in general public as well as in scientific community. In next decade scientists will be able to apply this technology for teleporting thing at the speed of light.

What’s teleporting? It may sound really futuristic, but it is simple scan of your body to the subatomic level and then sending the scanned data to where you want to be transported. Once transported to the chosen destination, a computer would convert that data and build you back, that too in a fraction of a second. A life size 3-D hologram is already in practice which will make teleporting possible.

3. Next innovation would be digitization of everything everywhere as the world will be wired and connected digitally. This would be possible by improvements in semiconductors, cell free networks and 5G technology. However, the gap in rich and poor countries may create a significant hurdle for this to happen. In many countries even 2G is not accessible while other advanced countries already started talking of 5G.

4. The study suggests that use of RNA technology will advance enough in next decade to create a platform for diagnosis and treatment of diseases like diabetes. 

5. Genome mapping and screening would be possible at birth with advancement in nanotechnology and data analysis tools. 

6. The advancement in the treatment of cancer would lead to more efficient and less toxic chemotherapy. 

7. The decline in the mental ability of people due to various reasons i.e. dementia, would get reduced significantly.

8. The eco-friendly and green technology advancement would lead to biodegradable cellulose-based packaging in place of petrolium-based packaging  .

9. Today the air transportation is mostly fuel-based but in next decade it may become possible that electric based air transportation will rule the airspace.

10. According to food and agriculture organization (FAO) more than 800 million that is one in eight people in the world are suffering from chronic hunger. It is predicted that the food shortage may become the thing of past in next one decade. The advancement in biotechnology and agricultural research would enhance the food production to meet the global need. However, will it really reach to every mouth and stomach will remain to be seen.

So, cross your finger and look ahead for a bright horizon which is as far as a decade from now and many things that we can only dream of today will become part of our routine…. Amen!!

To Save Mother Nature, Now is the time!

Self-motivation for exercise

Disclaimer: The writer is not an expert in the physiotherapy and training exercise. Reader must consult their physician or physiotherapist before starting any new physical exercise.

At the outset let us except that all the motivational images, photos and pictures that are put in public domain to promote adoption of a routine for healthy living are extremely glossy. They, although attract momentarily but fail to motivate in long run.  Even if one gets motivated and begins to exercise, in a few days s/he may revert to old routine. 

This happens mostly because we are not able to associate ourselves with the image of a perfectly shaped model, male or female. They have perfect abs, biceps and butts, which as a common man we aspire but hardly achieve it. This results in disillusion from the newly adopted exercise regimen.

Source: www.dumblittleman.com

These images do not show the harsh reality of exercise and present only pleasing and attractive images which are far removed from the day to day rigor of the exercise routine. Therefore, in most cases they do not actually motivate, rather they excite the misplaced and misinformed commitment, leading to failure.

Instead, an image of a new and motivated entrant who does not have as fit body as those models may motivate much better.

Just imagine a picture of an individual who is little overweight. S/He is exercising in the gym or a ground, sweating, almost out of breath but still managing to reach his target. Now imaging a satisfaction of completing her/his routine successfully on his face and the pleasure of doing it one more day, don’t we think this satisfaction will bring her/him back to the gym/ground again tomorrow. I do. This I can say with certainty from my own experience.

Source: www.six3nine.com/blogs

The image of real thing i.e. reality of sweating, tiring, struggling to catch the next breath, exercise-related pains and aches etc. may put us close to what we feel when we start a new exercise routine. And chance of sticking to this new regimen may increase because the motivating image had these elements and when we committed to the new exercise routine, we knew it well that these things are part of it.  

On the contrary, an image of well sculptured body of models worked out with the help of professionals and in guidance of dietitian will bring guaranteed dissatisfaction after few days, leading to disillusion form exercise routine. Not only that, the chance of reverting to exercise also gets a severe blow.

Now let me share some personal experiences which helps me stay motivated as far as sticking to the exercise routing is concerned:

1. Even if it is for only few (say ten) minutes, make it a point to go to the ground or gym and start warm up. I guarantee that by the end of warm up routine you have already entered an active exercise routine and ten minutes will easily become 30 minute or even more.

2. Many a times I, and others too, have felt that once in the active phase of exercise, quitting becomes tough. It’s the same feeling that we have while getting up early morning, we want to get 5 minutes of additional sleep, which sometimes extends to an hour long sojourn. It has both positive and negative consequence.

Positive side of this is that you feel motivated to complete the routing and that gives satisfaction, however sometimes we end up overdoing the routine giving in negative result. We need to be careful and do every routine in a planned and targeted manner.

3. Once you enter the active phase, do not strain yourself and overdo it because that may result in pains and aches which will become excuse for not doing it the next day.

4. Try to develop a habit for going to the gym daily, even on holidays. One day of excuse may extend to another day, to one week and finally breaking of the routine altogether. 

5. While following an exercise routine, our diet should be balanced including appropriate amount of proteins, carbs, fat and minerals. We cannot expect to decrease the weight and find the good shape with either only a glass of juice or an energy rich meal after an active exercise routine, diet must be supplemented with balanced nutrients. Therefore, help of a dietitian or self-learning from many websites available on the internet may be helpful.

Reversal of aging by young blood transfusion

Can an old person regain new strength and repair his depreciated organs such as heart and skeletal muscles, some brain cells and neurons by getting a blood transfusion from a younger person?

Source: agingscience.com

It has been earnest desire of the man kind to either live for-ever and at least delay the aging process so that one can remain youthful.

Scientists have been doing research to understand the aging process and many experiments have returned encouraging results. For example, we now know that there is a terminal segment in our DNA, called telomere which plays important role in how many times a cell will divide. With every cell division the length of telomere recedes resulting in loss of telomere length. Such is our DNA replication process which eventually leads to cellular senescence and aging.

Source: telomerance.net

Recently, the stem cell research has open a vast horizon of possibilities in terms of defying aging, replacing damaged organs and scientists have understood what are the factors needed to transform a stem cells into different body organ.

Now, this new finding has come where the researchers have provided a clue to the first question I put in the beginning. Working on the problem raised in 1950s by Dr. Clive M. McCay of Cornell University that why after parabiosis, a process of connecting two individuals by their blood vessels, of an old and a young mice, the older mice got rejuvenated by the plasma of the younger mice, two unrelated groups of scientists have claimed that blood transfusions from younger individuals may make an older individual young, repair their hearts and may cure an aged brain.

Source: neurorexia.com

The answer lies in the availability of some proteins in higher amount in the blood of young person which appears to stimulate the stem cells leading to the formation of new and young tissue in old person.

We all have stem cells in our body and they help us maintain our body homeostasis, vigour and adulthood. As we age, the factors which direct and guide the stem cells to repair the damaged organs and form new ones decrease leading to aging and aging-related diseases.

The scientists have identified some of the factors in blood plasma that may turn the clock for older individual. For example, the team scientists led by Dr. Amy J. Wagers of Harvard University identified a protein called GDF11 in young blood plasma that may stimulate the stem cells in old individual leading to the formation of new heart tissue.

Clinically, it means that this protein can be used a medicine to rejuvenate the damaged heart of an aged person after an attack. It may also be used as a supplement for older people to strengthen their heart and reduced the risk of heart diseases.

The same may be possible in case of Alzheimer's disease and many other neurodegenerative conditions that results due to aging.

After this path-breaking discovery, it is necessary to understand the mechanism how different factors guide the stem cells to convert into a specific cell of a specific organ. Such understanding should result in devising some cocktail drug which affects majority of body organs than taking individual drug to repair specific organ.

In science, every new discovery has potential harmful side too. In this case as well, there are concerns. The stem cell stimulation may also result in cancerous tissue which will be required to be negated for beneficial use.   Also that these experiments have been performed on mice and it will take time to try and test if these results hold true in humans.

Nonetheless, ‘hope is a great thing’. I am going close my eyes and think of possibilities of playing soccer with my great grand-children, why not!!

Further readings:

1.      http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3569.html

2.      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/630