PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS

New Delhi, 24 February 2006

Cure For Chronic Disorders

BOOSTING STEM CELL RESEARCH

By Radhakrishna Rao

India has made spectacular strides in space research and nuclear power generation. It is now preparing the ground to find a niche in stem cell research to find a cure to  many of the hitherto incurable diseases. Along with countries like Australia, China, Japan and South Korea, India is now looking at stem cell research as a way to get ahead in biotech. With the Christian fundamentalists in the US succeeding  in influencing the Bush Administration into putting  many restrictions of stem cell research on “ethical grounds” countries in the Asia Pacific  region are all set to emerge in the forefront of the stem cell research.

As pointed out by  D.Balasubramanian, Chairman of the Stem cell Task Force of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT),”India is especially interested in clinical applications of stem cells in ophthalmology, cardiology and spinal  cord repair” .In particular, he stated that  a key objective is to promote  stem cell city clusters  across Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. These clusters, observes Balasubramanian, would link all publicly and privately-funded  research groups within a city, enabling them to share  facilities, ideas and research and business opportunities. Right at the moment, around 200 scientists are actively involved in various aspects of stem cell research in India.

The Mumbai-based Reliance Life Sciences is planning to focus on research programme aimed at developing the use of bone marrow stem cells for treating cardiac disorders. Similarly, the Bangalore-based National Centre for Biological Sciences and  the Pune-   based National Centre of Cell Sciences are actively engaged in stem cell research with a particular stress on finding a cure for other wise incurable ailments.

The Hyderabad-based L.V.Prasad Eye Institute is among a few medical centres in the world that have been putting the fruits of stem cell research  to good use. Here doctors take about one millimeter  limbal tissue from the healthy eye  of the patient .culture them  on an appropriate medium and graft it on into the diseased eye. Such limbal stem cell  treatment is available only in a handful of countries. On the other hand, Christian Medical College (CMC),Vellore, plans to use the stem cells derived from the bone marrow to treat chronic liver failure and to regenerate  tissue to treat heart diseases and traumatic brain injuries.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS)in New Delhi, which is working to treat cardiac disorders using stem cells has subjected more than 30 patients suffering from heart related ailments to stem cell treatment and found  in majority of the cases the dead heart tissues stood revived. The AIIMS is now planning to use stem cell therapy for treating  diabetes, which in recent years has assumed epidemic proportion.

Meanwhile, the DBT has mooted a proposal to set up a national registry of mysenchymal stem cells derived from the bone marrow of an adult that can be used for a variety of clinical trials. The mesenchymal stem cells  are endowed with the potential to  develop into mature cells that produce fat, cartilege, bone tendons and muscles. As pointed out by Satish Totey, Research Director of the Bangalore-based  Manipal Stem Cell Research Centre, the mesenchymal  stem cells have a tendency to differentiate  into skeletal and  fibrous tissues, more easily. Totey says that they are also more easily accepted by the body and have a far fewer chances of getting rejected. As it is, clinical trials have shown that mesenchymal stem cells injected into the heart could replace scarce tissues that development after heart attacks with healthy new tissue.

As things stand now, the researchers are quite optimistic about treating lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, liver disorders and heart ailments. Right at the moment, research is proceeding apace to cure juvenile diabetes with stem cells. Essentially, stem cells are akin to “nature’s blank slates” capable of developing into any of more than 200 cells types that make up the human body. As such, the stem cell research offer the possibility of replacing the “faulty” and “malfunctioning” tissues and pave the way for curing hitherto incurable ailments.

Stem cells grow into virtually any kind of tissue in the human body when nurtured properly. The new stem cell lines, researchers hope, can replace the old and worn out cells  within the human body, increasing longevity and serving as a miracle cure  for degenerative diseases .But then researchers need  to cover much ground and go long way before they succeeded in perfecting the stem cell therapy for treating human ailments. Clearly and apparently, the cord blood collected from the umbilical cord is an excellent repository of stem cells and is considered a better alternative than anything else for us in transplants for people suffering from leukemia and other immune related disease.

Normally, cord blood is collected before the placenta is delivered. A bay’s umbilical cord blood, which is otherwise discarded, is a rich sources of stem cells endowed with the ability to regenerate and replace a variety of tissues, in recent years, the concept of cord  banking is catching on  in India. Interestingly, the cord blood bank which store baby’s cord blood in liquid nitrogen for a period 21 years for a fee of around Rs.60,000 is considered a “biological insurance” since the child from whose umbilical cord the blood was collected can stand to benefit from it at any stage of his life. The Chennai-based Cryocell has set up facilities to preserve cord blood .Similarly, Life cell, yet another  private stem cell bank in Chennai says  that about 1,000 expectant parents have enrolled to bank the cord blood stem cells.

The recently-set up Bangalore-based Cryostem Karnataka Pvt Ltd is a cord blood stem cell bank as well as research centre. As pointed out by its Director Dr.S.G.A.Rao,  “Cryostem Karnataka  is both a service oriented and research based company involved in stem cell banking’ He also drove home the point that the company is involved in embryonic stem  cell research   for developing  novel therapeutic clinical applications. Going further, Dr.Rao observed, “We are looking forward to establishing a specialized stem cell based transplant therapy and related clinical research.”

In a related development, Dr. P.Srinivasna, Director of the Jeevan Blood Bank in Chennai has  unveiled a plan to  launch a public cord blood bank to be run on a “no loss, no profit basis”. The concept of a   public  cord blood bank, to be run on a no-loss- no- profit basis, centres round the idea that parents donate the cord blood  of heir baby to a central banking facility  for use by anybody who needs it. By all means, the therapeutic potentials of the cord blood stem cells is considered as one of the path-breaking  discoveries of the 21^st century. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS

New Delhi, 11 February 2006

WHO Warning

TACKLING THE CHALLENGE OF MALARIA

By Radhakrishna Rao

The ancient disease of malaria has become a major public health challenge of  the 21^st century with more than one million people getting killed world wide each year by this scourge, which not long back, was believed to be vanquished once for all .Though the incidence of malaria is estimated to be highest in the resources poor sub-Saharan Africa, the epidemic continues to  pose a serious threat to most of the tropical countries.

In the Indian context, though much  progress  has been achieved  in curbing the incidence  of malaria, in recent years the proliferation of slums and shanty towns  in the urban areas of the country has contributed in a big way to the explosive spread of the disease.

In fact, the conventional method  of monitoring  the potential  breeding ground  of the disease causing mosquito strains  across the  Indian urban sprawl has become a cumbersome exercise in terms of  money and time .As such, the New Delhi-based  Malaria Research Centre (MRC) has been making use of the data made available by a string  of earth observation and weather  monitoring satellites  to map the potential malariogenic areas in the country In the long run , repeated observation from space   over a period of time, can provide comparable data which will ad to the  malarial eradication measures.

In recent years, the malaria control programme in India  and in  other parts of the tropical world has run into a problem. Following the disease causing parasites fast developing resistance to the once potent anti-malarial drugs and the mosquito strains  spreading  the disease-developing resistance to  a range of  hitherto potent pesticides.

Though a number of vaccines meant to provide protection against malaria are under various stages of development, testing and trial, none of them has been cleared for a regular and routine use. Meanwhile, a malarial vaccine under trial has shown good results  during clinical tests in Mozambique. This vaccine, developed by the pharmaceutical giant Glaxosmithkline Biolgicals (GSK) along with Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) was tried on children in Mozambique. Monitoring of the children who were given three-dose regimen of the vaccine showed that they were protected for 18 months.

But then as pointed out by Jean Stephen, President of GSK Biologicals, “several more years of  clinical investigations will be needed before this vaccine is ready for licensing “ On the other hand, Dr. Melinda Morse, Director of Path  MVI   crated with the objective of  overcoming the barriers in the malarial  vaccine development has this to say: “The ability of this vaccine to protect children from severe malaria for at least 18 months makes it a very promising, potential public  check tool for the developing world.” Going further Morse observed: “We are committed to making an affordable, safe and effective malarial vaccine available as quickly as possible to those who need it most”.

In a related development a team of French scientists at Pasteur Institute under the leadership of Prof. Pierre Drulhe has reported about the trials of a malarial vaccine that mimics the natural immunity some people develop against the disease .But the  biggest problem associated with a malarial vaccine is that the antigen a vaccine could target may vary depending on what stage the parasite is at in its life cycle .Clearly and apparently, this implies that a single vaccine  might not work against all strains of  the parasites.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the global drug outfits  that they risked destroying the effectiveness of   the drug if they market drugs made from artemisenin except in combination with other, older malarial drugs. For long, the plant  artemisenin has been used as a  sure shot cure to treat malaria by the Chinese.

According to  Arata Kochi, WHO’s Head of Malaria,  “our biggest concern right now  is to treat patients with safe and effective medication and to avoid the problem of drug resistance”. Kochi also drove home the point that “If we lose ACTS (artemisinen combination therapy) we will no longer have a cure for malaria and it will probably be at least ten years before a new one can be discovered”.

The WHO sources reveal that drug resistance is now a major problem in the fight against malaria. For instance, sulfa doxine pyrimethanine, which was hundred per cent effective  about two decades ago, has now lost much of its punch. According to Kochi, “so far, no  treatment failures due to artemisinen drug  resistance have been documented, but we are watching the situation very attentively”.

Meanwhile, researchers working on devising new and novel  struggles to fight malaria are veering round the view that climatic fluctuations could be used to predict malarial epidemics .Researchers are confident  that the system which is based on computer models of climate change can predict  outbreaks up to five months in advance.

For example in Botswana, the national malaria control programme has succeeded in putting in place an early warning system based on population dynamics  rain fall and health surveillance to predict and detect unusual changes  in the seasonal pattern of the disease. Yet another study on the influence of climate on the spread of malaria shows that monitoring rainfall and sea surface temperature could be used to predict the onset of malarial season one month in advance.

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS

New Delhi, 3 February 2006

India’s Ambitious Programme

TOWARDS INNOVATIVE ROBOTS

By Radhakrishna Rao

The science and technology of building robots has received a quickening impetus from the advances in planetary research. As it is, the American Administration’s strong push for an increasing frequency of manned space flights in the years ahead could open up the frontiers for engineering newer and innovative robot systems capable of handling challenging tasks and using the tool the way people do,” We were told by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that how can robots support manned missions on the Moon and Mars before people get there, while they are up there and after they are left, said Dr.Rodney Brooks, Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Incidentally, Brooks was the architect of the robotics-based sojourner probe launched by the American space agency NASA in 1997. Without doubt, sojourner was considered a bold experiment in robotics. In fact, the current thrust of Dr. Brooks’ laboratory is on endowing the robots with skills and intelligence that are useful to the people. It is  envisioned that  in the none-too-distant a future, robots will wheel around the hospitals, houses and offices.

In Japan, where the rapidly ageing population has become a big social challenge, the current focus of robotics research on designing smart machines that would ultimately serve as the “companions and faithful servants” of the neglected elderly population. “The next generation of robots now coming up on to the market will improve the daily life of our ageing population”, said a spokesman of the Osaka Perfecture Government in Japan. The Japan Robot Association expects the so-called companion robots and other robots for the home to be the biggest future growth market, comprising around 50% of the robots by 2010.

Nearer home, the Hyderabad-based International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) has unveiled an ambitious programme for designing and developing a range of robots for a variety of applications—from education and research to surgical and medical purposes. The Robotics Research Laboratory of IIIT has a tie-up with the Carnegie Mellon University of USA. According to P.J. Narayanan, Director of IIIT, the robotics development   programme of the IIIT has been planned in two over-lapping phases.

While the phase-1 will concentrate on building the necessary level of capabilities in robotics and  associated technologies, the Phase-11 will focus on research and technology development and the identification and implementation of robotics applications. Meanwhile, the IIIT’s  robotics laboratory  is developing a low cost, versatile robot  equipped with  a stereo cameras, sonar larger range finders and inertial sensors to help it navigate through hazardous environment.

On the other hand, the Switzerland-based company by name K-Team has developed a robot that functions as a camel jockey. According to Alexander Colat, Managing Director of K-Team, “we are aiming at making this mechanical system as close to human jockey as possible”. Ultimately the objective is to make camel races in United Arab Emirates (UAE) a totally robot driven affair. Interestingly, the robotic jockey is sprayed with scent traditionally used by human jockeys. “It was important for us that the camel recognizes and accepts the robot so we had to make him as human as possible”, said Colat. Perhaps the most important feature of this robot jockey is that it has been designed to show gestures similar to those of a human jockey.

Currently, the major thrust of robotics development programme is on using artificial intelligence to endow the machine with a greater degree of versatility. There are also efforts to develop robots capable recognizing human faces and human voice. Here, the emerging research discipline of speech recognition is being used by the robotics engineers.

Researchers feel that use of advanced artificial intelligence would help robots mimick humans in many ways. It surmised that AI would help a robot to reason, discriminate, think and generate ideas depending upon the situation. As it is, AI implies simulation of the human intelligence process by smart devices that interact with their immediate environment, develop a power of reasoning and are capable of arriving at specific conclusions.

On another front, the rapid advances in nanotechnology, neural networking and Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) have contributed in a substantial manner to the task of developing intelligent robots that are capable of learning and self correction. Similarly, endeavours are on to equip robots with fault tolerant systems.

Because robots never get tired and are not bothered by monotony, they can become an ideal supplement to human labour. Moreover, robots can function even under hostile conditions and hazardous environment. Further, robots can easily handle tasks involving manual labour. For instance, it can clean up office corridors and move from one floor to another by itself, cleaning passages, along a programmed route and avoiding obstacles with sensors it carries.

In fact, robots have no substitutes when it comes to tackling dangerous situations and handling hazardous substances. They can easily detect landmines and bombs and also defuse them. In addition, they can go deep down the earth’s crust, where temperatures are intolerable and look for buried treasure. Robots are now being routinely employed for handling dangerous chemicals and in operating the nuclear reactors. In majority of cases, the operator of the robot controls and manipulates the machine from a safe distance. Similarly, the robots meant to diffuse explosive devices are equipped with cameras, sensors and grippers.

More importantly, robots can also be passed into service to rescue humans caught under the debris of a collapsed building. Significantly, a robot christened Dervish developed by Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh has the capacity to withstand the force of about eleven tonnes anti-personal mines during the search and rescue operations. In the area of medicine and health care, micro and mini robots are used to carry out certain types of complicated surgeries involving very minute parts of the human organs. In fact, these robots help surgeons perform delicate procedures that would be otherwise to fine for human hands.

As a matter of fact, the current research trend in the area of robotics is centered round mimicking natural systems as close as possible and turn robots into self-controlled autonomous bodies. Robots employed in space missions are to a large extent autonomous entities.

Using robots in industrial production, especially in automobile plants have many advantages. For they can work with precision and accuracy for long hours without getting tired. No doubt, they ultimately help improve productivity as well as the quality of production. Use of robots also makes for a decrease in the production cost. It has been computed that one robot can perform the job of  two to five persons. In the years ahead, robots will substitute human labour at a vastly enhanced frequency.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

PEOPLE AND THEIR PROBLEMS

New Delhi, 26 January 2006

Death for Death

MERCY PETITION AND THE PRESIDENT

By Justice Panachand Jain (Retd)

If we look at the history of the criminology, “eye for an eye” and “death for death” was the standard response of the society in the past.  Even today in the Middle-East, for many of the offences, the accused are publicly stoned to death.  However, if more than 80 countries in the world have abolished capital punishment, there must be weighty ground behind such a policy.

In Lachma Devi’s case, the Supreme Court observed that “a barbaric crime does not have to be visited with barbaric penalty”.  It was a case where the Rajasthan High Court awarded death penalty by hanging in public.  Justice Krishna Iyyer in Mohd. Giasuddin’s case observed in his inimitable style “progressive criminology across the world will agree that ……” the infliction of harsh and savage punishment is thus a realm of the past and regressive time.  We strongly feel that humanitarian wind blow into the prison barricades”.

One of the major arguments against capital punishment is its irreversibility.  Miscarriage of justice cannot be ruled out. Courts are not infallible.  Many cases are planted.  Witnesses so often tell lies.  Fabrication of cases by police is not uncommon.  We frequently hear of false encounters.  Against this backdrop, can we totally rule out the possibility of an innocent person being hanged?  The Constitution makers in Article 72 of the Constitution of India laid down this principle and has empowered the President of India to grant pardon and further ordained to commute death sentence to life imprisonment.

It was reported that the Home Ministry advised President Kalam that Dhananjoy Chatterjee should be shown no mercy and the sentence of death penalty be carried out.  But at the same time European Union in its communication addressed to the Government of India had advised for cancellation of death sentence.  Whatever may be the circumstances Dhananjoy was hanged.

The President in 50 cases where death penalty has been awarded, has advised the Home Ministry, Government of India to show mercy.  This has evoked wide spread media coverage and public debate.

A century ago in England, a servant used to be hanged in public for the theft of a spoon or a piece of bread.  It so happened that at the time of public hanging it was reported that many persons lost their purses due to pick-pocketing.  Consequently it was realized that the punishment by hanging had no deterrent effect and the punishment of death penalty, was abolished.

The Constitution Bench in Trivedi Ben’s case has held that inordinate delay in disposal of mercy petitions would be material for commuting the death penalty to life imprisonment. Under Article 7 of the Constitution of India, President has power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence in all cases in which the sentence conferring the power on the President is to correct possible judicial errors for no human system of judicial administration can be free from imperfection.

In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, in all cases commutation of the sentence of death should normally be considered favourable and for achieving this objective the International Organization came with a covenant titled as International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966.  Our country is a party to it.  Article 6 of the Covenant reads as under: Every human being has the inherent right to life; any one sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence.  Amnesty pardon or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases.

The Covenant thus empowers the President to commute the sentence of death to life imprisonment. It ordains that it may be granted in all cases. A covenant is a treaty or agreement which if ratified creates binding international obligation for the country concerned.

There has been a sea-change in the living conditions and thinking all over the world during the last one century.  The philosophy behind the capital punishment which guided the framers of Indian Penal Code more than 145 years ago cannot hold water today.  We should take note of the winds of change.  The civilized society should think of reforming rather than retribution.

The abolishment of death penalty proclaim that capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime, as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.  They also argue that the state does not have a right to take her citizens’ life, as life was not given by the State.

The death penalty thus in terms of the recommendation of the Law-Commission of India and the covenant of 1966 be abolished and instead life imprisonment in such cases be defined to mean imprisonment for the life without any reduction under no circumstances.  Separate rules be prescribed for dealing with the prisoners during the full term of punishment.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)