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Blood vessel stiffness has been proven to be a highly powerful indicator of cardiovascular issues and ageing of the heart. Accurate measurements of changes in arterial dimensions and blood pressure are necessary for determining arterial stiffness. Modern techniques carry out this measurement using specialised ultrasound imaging apparatus. Widespread application of image-based arterial stiffness monitoring is constrained by the need for expensive equipment and high levels of technical skill to operate that equipment. A low-cost, simple-to-use technology that can be widely used with little training is required. The ARTerial Stiffness Evaluation for Non-invasive Screening (ARTSENS) test was created by HTIC (Healthcare…
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a bloodborne pathogen, and the majority of infections result through contact with blood from unsafe injection techniques, hazardous medical procedures, unscreened blood transfusions, injectable drug usage, and sexual behaviours that expose one to blood. Around 1.5 million new HCV cases are reported each year globally, with an estimated 58 million people worldwide carrying the infection. According to estimates, 3.2 million children and adolescents worldwide have chronic hepatitis C infection. According to the WHO, 2,90,000 people died from hepatitis C in 2019 in the world, primarily due to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (primary liver cancer).…
Success of India’s COVID-19 response has a background of multiple programmes that the government of India had undertaken during 2017-18 to improve healthcare. To make India’s health sector robust, economically affordable, and accessible, the National Health Policy 2017 was rolled out. Ayushman Bharat Program (ABP), the flagship healthcare initiative, was launched in 2018 as a mission to expand universal health coverage, with a commitment to ‘leave no one behind’. One of the components of ABP, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) had begun to expand the footprint of healthcare coverage to rural and vulnerable populations, improving access to hospitalisation…
Dr Ashwani Kumar, Senior Principal Scientist of the Chandigarh-based Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), has been given the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for Biological Sciences for the year 2022. His substantial contributions to TB pathophysiology, particularly the part played by biofilm-induced infections, have earned him this honour. In the presence of Dr Jitendra Singh, Dr N Kalaiselvi, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), announced the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) awards for 2022. A valued scientific honour for noteworthy and excellent work in biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics, among other fields, is the SSB Prize for…
Cell biologist Dr Maddika Subba Reddy studies how proteins interact in cells at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics in Hyderabad. He shared the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Biological Sciences for this year’s winner with Dr Ashwani Kumar of the Chandigarh-based CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology. Dr Reddy is the head of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics’ Laboratory of Cell Death and Cell Survival (LCDCS). He received the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science honours, from the Department of Biotechnology of the Indian Government in 2017–18 for his contributions to…
China is the world’s largest provider of the cells that make up the battery packs that go into electric vehicles (EV), as is the case with many other hardware components and goods. More crucially, India imports these cells because it has no commercial capability. The Bengaluru-based Log9 Materials is an Indian nanotechnology business that specialises in filtration and renewable energy. Log9 Materials has created aluminum-air batteries and aluminium fuel cells for both mobile and fixed energy applications, and it holds 16 patents related to graphene. The company, which has its headquarters in Bengaluru, produces its own battery pack components, including…
Aditya L1 observes the Sun’s first high-energy explosion As the Aditya-L1 mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) continues its journey towards its destination at Lagrange Point 1, it has achieved a major breakthrough in solar research. During its first observation period on October 29, 2023, the High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS), one of the seven payloads on board the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, successfully recorded the impulsive phase of solar flares. An abrupt and powerful outburst of radiation, mostly in the form of ultraviolet (UV) and X-rays, that originates from the Sun’s surface and outer atmosphere is called…
Turmeric / Haridra / Haladi / Manjal is such an integral part of life in India that our various cuisines — and life in general — are unimaginable without it. Native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, this flowering plant of the ginger family is a true wonder product of nature, and India takes pride in being its largest producer, consumer and exporter in the world. In the year 2022-23, an area of 3.24 lakh ha was under turmeric cultivation in India with a production of 11.61 lakh tonnes, which is over 75% of global turmeric production. Given those…
Sanitation workers across the nation are working on the frontlines during the pandemic. These workers, mainly the manual scavengers, are highly exposed to all kinds of domestic and hazardous waste. Manual scavenging, also called manhole cleaning, is one of the biggest problems in India and one of the worst professions in the world. The working and living conditions of these scavengers are horrific, with dire consequences on their health. There are about 1.8 lakh people in the country working as manual scavengers. Most of them die from inhaling poisonous gases accumulated inside manholes, oxygen depletion, heat stress or from falling…
The human gut microbiome (HGM), which is made up of more than 3.3 million distinct genes from more than 1,000 different bacterial species in the human gut, gives the host extra metabolic activity so that it can metabolise substances that are not broken down by the host. HGM is a potential target to modulate health and illness because it breaks down ingested food to produce a wide variety of microbial metabolites that are essential to human physiology and health. Due to the vast diversity and complexity of the gut microbiome, it is difficult to experimentally determine the metabolism of compounds…