Swedish institute to spread its tech in developing world

Narayana Nethralaya (NN), a super-speciality eye hospital, and Karolinskaya Institute, Sweden, better known as the home as Nobel Prize in medicine/physiology, have joined hands to bring the scientist closer to the patient’s bed i.e. connecting the clinician and the researcher.

The “Regenerative and Transplantation Medicine in Opthalmology’, a programme for medical students, specialist physicians in training, doctoral students, basic science advanced students and non-physicians, is a step in this direction, said Dr K Bhujang Shetty, chairman and managing director, Narayana Nethralaya. Regenerative medicine is to create organs to be re-grown from the patient’s own cells (stem cells or cells extracted from failing organs).

In the West, R&D and translational medicine have a multi-disciplinary approach. System biology germinated during World War II as people of all disciplines had to work together from a common facility for want of infrastructure.

With advanced molecular biology, strong basic research labs are required and there is no need for a separate lab at NN as it can make use of Karolinskaya Institute’s research results.

With this, Karolinskaya Institute, which has to its credit developing an artificial trachea, has been looking to enter India and China to do research gets a foothold in a developing country with big population samples.

It has been wanting to go to geographies where they would have access to a wide patient range. “They now want applied medicine to be spread globally,” said Debashish Das, chief scientist — basic science R&D, Narayana Nethralaya, adding, “They are looking at a non-profit approach, not trying to monetise the gains of R&D.” Das is a post-doctoral fellow from Karolinskaya Institute.

For Karolinskaya, which has a strong basic research, Narayana is the first such joint programme in the country as it is mutually beneficial.

“Regenerative medicine is being looked upon as the future treatment regime in several of pathological conditions. This course is a primer to prepare our Indian as well as biological science students to embrace the knowledge of regenerative and transplantation medicine,” said Dr Shetty. The course being conducted at Narayana Nethralaya till November 16, have interactions, focus group discussions with faculty and a workshop on a few basic practical techniques.

The course aims to introduce the basics as well as the recent advances of transplantation research including stem cell biology, tissue engineering and gene therapy. “This course will expose the participants to an environment of regenerative and transplantation medicine with world-renowned experts teaching them the basics to advance stages,” Dr Shetty added.

Regeneration is the process of renewal, restoration and growth that makes genomes, cells, organs, organisms. Organs and/or tissues that are transplanted within the same person’s body are called autografts. Degeneration is a gradual deterioration of specific tissues, cells or organs with corresponding impairment or loss of function. It can be caused by injury, disease, or aging and leads to loss of function, characteristic or structure in an organism or species.

“The cornea and musculoskeletal grafts are the most commonly transplanted tissues; these outnumber organ transplant by more than ten-fold,” said Dr Shetty.