19 March, 2015

IIT team develops affordable dialysis technology

Kolkata: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur have engineered an indigenous, cost-effective kidney dialysis technology. The innovative technology was recently recognised with the National Award, a statement said on Wednesday.

Haemodialysis is administered to patients suffering from various stages of kidney failure. Commonly referred to as "artificial kidney", it is a machine that uses dialysis to remove impurities and waste products from the bloodstream before returning the blood to the patient's body.

"Administering haemodialysis is a very expensive affair for an average Indian. Haemodialysis cartridges are not manufactured in India and are imported from Germany, Korea or Japan," said Anirban Roy, a research scholar at the IIT's department of chemical engineering and co-inventor of the technology.

The cartridges are formed of 7,000 to 15,000 hollow fibres of 180-220 microns inner diameter and 15-40 micron thickness, and the challenge lies in spinning these clinical grade hollow fibre membranes to the specific dimensions, said Roy.

"The present innovation is about a technology (using disposable syringe assemblies) that has been designed to spin such clinical grade fibres in India since the country does not possess the technology to spin hollow fibre membranes of such specifications."

"This technology does not use the conventional expensive spinnerets which are employed by the companies abroad," said Roy, adding only four to five companies worldwide enjoy the monopoly in this business and all have their own patented technology.

"Due to this, each dialyser costs Rs.1,000 to Rs.1,500 and ideally three such dialysers are needed per week for each patient," he said.

The estimated manufacturing cost of such a dialyser developed by the IIT-Kharagpur team is expected to be around Rs.200-300, he said.

This is a project of national importance and was funded by the Department of Science and Technology, with two Bengaluru-based companies as industrial partners of the technology, said Roy.

Source: www.zeenewsindia.com      19.03.2015

Indian-origin scientist turns cancer cells into harmless cells

Washington: An Indian-origin researcher at the Stanford University in the US has found a method that can cause dangerous leukemia cells to mature into harmless immune cells known as macrophages.

Assistant professor of medicine Ravi Majeti made the key observation after collecting leukemia cells from a patient and trying to keep the cells alive in a culture plate.

"We were throwing everything at them to help them survive," said Majeti in a paper that appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

B-cell leukemia cells are in many ways progenitor cells that are forced to stay in an immature state.

During the study, Majeti and post-doctoral scholar Scott McClellan found that some of the cancer cells in culture were changing shape and size into what looked like macrophages.

The team confirmed that methods shown to have altered the fate of the mouse progenitor cells years ago could be used to transform these human cancer cells into macrophages which can engulf and digest cancer cells and pathogens.

B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a mutation called the Philadelphia chromosome is a particularly aggressive cancer with poor outcomes.

"So finding potential treatments is particularly exciting," Majeti added.

Majeti and his colleagues have some reason to hope that when the cancer cells become macrophages they will not only be neutralised but may actually assist in fighting the cancer.

"Because the macrophage cells came from the cancer cells, they will already carry with them the chemical signals that will identify the cancer cells, making an immune attack against the cancer more likely," Majeti explained.

The researchers' next steps would be to see if they can find a drug that will prompt the same reaction and that could serve as the basis for a therapy for the leukemia.

Source: www.zeenewsindia.com     

19.03.2015

They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them

Mahatma Gandhi