4 top institutes come together for research on brain disorders

Taking part in the first annual five-day workshop of the Centre for Computational Brain Research (CCBR) at IIT Madras on Monday, IIT-M alumnus and co-founder of Infosys, Kris Gopalakrishnan said he was involved in a programme to accelerate stem cell technology application in human disease and the programme announcement would be on January 20. 

Research institutes involved in the programme are Christian Medical College, Vellore, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bengaluru, and National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. 

Without revealing much details, Gopalakrishnan said he would be funding the programme from his foundation, apart from the Department of Bio Technology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Stating that he was excited in two research areas —gene editing and generating electricity from solar energy, the IIT-M alumnus said that people could learn many things from nature. 

Gopalakrishnan also said that many Fortune 500 companies had some part of their IT operations in India and many had their research facility in the country due to availability of high quality manpower in India. IIT-Madras director, Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi said that Kris Gopalakrishnan had endowed three research chairs at the institute, including the one for computational brain research.

“We will find many avenues for collaboration with other institutes and we are keen to collaborate in several areas for research,” he said.