S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Guwahati research work is making a move in the new direction it can be said. IIT Guwahati research team has worked out out-of-the-box idea that can help preventing or bringing down the short-term memory loss due to Alzheimer’s disease.
IIT Guwahati research team comprising Professor Vibin Ramakrishnan, Professor, Department of Biosciences & Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati and Professor Harshal Nemade, Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, IIT Guwahati.
IIT Guwahati research 2020
This IIT Guwahati research team studied the neurochemical principles of Alzheimer’s and explored new ways to prevent accumulation of neurotoxic molecules in the brain that are associated with short-term memory loss due to Alzheimer’s disease.
IIT Guwahati research team reported interesting methods such as application of low-voltage electric field and the use of ‘trojan peptides’ to arrest aggregation of neurotoxic molecules in the brain.
The scientists of IIT Guwahati research team were assisted by research scholars Dr. Gaurav Pandey and Mr. Jahnu Saikia in their work.
The results of their studies have been published in reputed journals such as ACS Chemical Neuroscience, RSC Advances of Royal Society of Chemistry, BBA and Neuropeptides.
The development of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease is important especially for India, which has the third highest number of Alzheimer’s patients in the world, after China and US, with more than four million people falling prey to the memory loss associated with it.
Taking the above fact into consideration the work done by IIT Guwahati research team is likely to have lot of significance.
While current treatments only alleviate some of the symptoms of the disease, there is no disruptive therapeutic approach yet that can treat the underlying causes of Alzheimer’s.
Also read ‘New dates for UPSC Civil Service prelims 2020 exam will be out on 5 June‘
Approximately hundred potential drugs for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease have failed between 1998 and 2011, which shows the gravity of the problem, said Dr. Ramakrishnan who participates in worldwide efforts at finding cures for the disease.
A defining hallmark of Alzheimer’s is the accumulation of Amyloid beta peptides in the brain. And the IIT Guwahati research team comprising Dr. Ramakrishnan and Dr. Nemade seek methods to reduce the accumulation of these peptides in order to arrest the progression of Alzeimer’s.
In 2019, IIT Guwahati research scientists found that application of a low-voltage, safe electrical field can reduce the formation and accumulation of toxic neurodegenerative molecules that cause short-term memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease.
They found that external electric/magnetic field modulates the structure of these peptide molecules, thereby preventing aggregation.
Upon exposure to electric field we could retard the degeneration of nerve cells to an extent of 17 to 35%. Objectively, this would translate to about 10 years delay in the onset of the disease, said Dr. Ramakrishnan.
Taking further the IIT Guwahati research, the possibility of using ‘Trojan peptides’ to arrest aggregation of these neurotoxic molecules was explored.
The idea of using ‘Trojan peptide’ comes from mythological ‘Trojan Horse’ used as subterfuge by the Greeks in the battle of Troy.
The IIT Guwahati research team has designed Trojan peptides by adopting a similar approach of ‘deceit’ to impede the aggregation of the amyloid peptide, arrest the formation of toxic fibrillar assemblies and reduce poisoning of nerve cells that leads to memory loss.
IIT Guwahati research has provided a different path that may extend the onset of the Alzheimer’s disease. However, it would take testing in animal models and clinical trials before bringing in such new therapeutic approaches into human treatment, says Dr. Ramakrishnan and Dr. Nemade of IIT Guwahati research team.
About – IIT Guwahati
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati established in 1994 has completed 25 years of glorious existence in 2019. At present, the Institute has eleven departments and five inter-disciplinary
The institute offers a residential campus to 412 faculty members and more than 6,000 students at present. Besides its laurels in teaching and research, IIT Guwahati has been able to fulfill the aspirations of people of the North East region to a great extent since its inception in 1994. The picturesque campus is on a sprawling 285 hectares plot on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, around 20 kms from the heart of the Guwahati city.
IIT Guwahati is the only academic institution in India that occupied a place among the top 100 world universities – under 50 years of age – ranked by the London-based Times Higher Education (THE) in the year 2014 and continues to maintain its superior position even today in various International Rankings.
Along with the older IITs and Delhi University, IIT Guwahati has been ranked below 500 in the QS World ranking released recently.
IIT Guwahati has retained the 7th position among the best engineering institutions of the country in the ‘India Rankings 2019’ declared by National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).
IIT Guwahati has been also ranked 2nd in the ‘Swachhata Ranking’ conducted by the Govt. of India. Recently, IIT Guwahati has been ranked as the top ranked University in 2019 for IT developers by HackerRank in the Asia-Pacific region.