- भारत सरकार Government of India
- शिक्षा मंत्रालय Ministry of Education
- भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान खड़गपुर Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Professor Sarah Cartmell, Head of the Department of Materials, The University of Manchester, UK visited Material Research Centre, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, India during Saturday 17th August Saturday 30th August 2019 for a SPARC funded project entitled Electrical stimulation with electroactive biomaterials as therapeutic strategy for intractable bone and neurodegenerative diseases in collaboration with Professor Bikram Basu at IISc. The visit included discussions with Professor Basu on various collaborative projects and future funding schemes. It also included meetings with his research team members, wider IISc faculty members (from materials, bioengineering and electrical engineering departments) and national biomaterials members from different top Indian Universities who are part of Professor Basu's wider collaborative network. In addition training was given to both graduate and undergraduate students in the form of 9 lectures and one to one meetings. Two seminars were also given to the materials department and biomedical engineering department during Professor Cartmell's visit. This varied array of activities have provided many new opportunities, training opportunities for students and early career staff and international collaborative network building for Professor Cartmell and Professor Basu. There are several funding applications and future workshop events now planned as a result of this visit with both Professor Basu's research group and wider contacts in both IISc and nationally. A meeting with the International office of both IISc and Manchester (who joined via skype) was also held, who both see biomaterials as an important research area to support in each institution.
IISc Students, IISc Faculty, National Faculty
My role as Honorary Visiting Chair at University of Manchester (UoM) started off with a two week visit during November 5-15, 2019. This summary highlights my contributions on three aspects, a) teaching and research seminars, b) research related discussion and c) strategic discussion on future collaborations.
I taught two lectures for the MSc (Biomaterials) course at UoM, which was attended by close to 30 students. In these lectures, I have covered the fundamentals and clinical translational aspects of the two clinically relevant topics, Additive Manufacturing and Peripheral Nerve Regeneration. In both the lectures, I also have highlighted the key results from our research group. The research seminar on the theme of Bioelectronic medicine was well attended by the UoM Materials community. In this lecture, I have showcased our decade-long research on both experimental and computational work to establish our concept, âSynergistic interaction between biomaterial substrate conductivity and electric field stimulation generates bioelectric stresses, causing mechanotransduction to modulate stem cell functionalityâ.
In a number of discussions with UoM academic staff and PhD students, I have discussed future collaborations majorly in two directions, a) Developing IISc-Manchester concepts, to concepts to develop deep scientific understanding on underlying biophysical mechanisms for guiding cell differentiation in electric field-stimulated culture and b) High resolution multiscale measurements to better understand cell-material interaction.
In terms of strategic discussion, I had a very insightful discussion on the internationalisation of the Royce Institute in the biomedical materials space. We discussed on an IISc-TATA-UoM strategic workshop in June, 2020. I also finalised one GCRF student proposal in the area of 3D printing of Metals with Prof. Cartmell. A number of research themes were discussed in the area of Tissue Engineering and Bioelectronic Medicine during the IISc-UoM workshop on November 8, 2019; wherein I have led the IISc team.
Biomaterials
Biomaterials
A one and a half day workshop was held on 23rd â 24th August, 2019, at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, featuring Prof. Sarah Cartmell, from the University of Manchester, foreign Principal Investigator under the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Colloboration (SPARC). The event was hosted by Prof. Bikramjit Basu, Principal Investigator of the project. The presentations sessions explored ongoing research in the field of biomaterials science, tissue regeneration and bioengineering, India, and were open to students of Indian Institute of Science. Faculty presenting were from IIT (BHU), Varanasi, NITK Surathkal, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee. The workshop featured one-to-one discussions of Faculty with Prof. Cartmell. Prof. Basu discussed challenges and recommendations associated with the current research ecosystem, in preparation for publishing a monograph for the Indian National Science Academy on the subject. How to map the terrain ahead for improving research on indigenous biomedical implants and the related ecosystem were deliberated on.
Faculty presenting were Prof. Saumen Mandal, NIT Surathkal, Prof. Ashutosh Dubey, IIT BHU, Prof. Debrupa Lahiri, IIT Roorkee, Prof. Sarah Cartmell, University of Manchester, Prof. Santanu Dhara, IIT Kharagpur.Prof. Kaushik Chatterjee, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Prof. Hardik Pandya, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
This monograph presents an important set of policy-related recommendations to stimulate accelerated journey of scientific discovery, together with manufacturing of next generation biomaterials and implants in developing nations, with India as a model, at the backdrop of the international status in the field
