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Chennai, 07 May 2008: It’s the stem cell expansion technology using nanomaterials, mastered by Mr. Manjunath, a researcher, at Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM), Chennai, is seeing him through to Japan as he is flying to Tokyo on the 10th May 2008 to work in the Yamaguchi University, (YGU) Japan. His work done in the Chennai based Indo-Japan joint venture institute NCRM could convince the experts in Liver Stem Cells and Hematopoietic Stem Cells of the YGU, that it has a very big potential and they have offered him a fellowship to work for one year on the same lines with advanced equipments available in the stem cell research lab in the First Department of Medicine of the university.
Hematopoietic stem cells(HSCs) are the blood forming cells which are responsible for the formation of blood components such as RBCs, WBCs and Platelets on a daily basis and patients suffering from blood diseases such as Thalassemia may need the transfusion of these cells frequently. Though bone marrow from others can be donated or Umbilical cord blood stored can be used, when several doses of transfusion are necessary, they may not be adequate and finding donors for several transfusions is also difficult. In these circumstances, HSCs expansion is very vital on which NCRM has been working for the past two years using polymer and nanomaterial based scaffolds.
YamaGuchi University(YGU) is a Japanese government run National university with medical faculty and a teaching hospital whose first department of medicine headed by Prof. Isao Sakaida have pioneered the application of bone marrow stem cells for liver cirrhosis and these bone marrow stem cells contain HSCs. The association of NCRM with Prof. Sakaida’s team for the past two years with this new application triggered a collaborative research and since the earlier done work at NCRM has been convincing for a joint study, Mr. Manjunath is going to Japan. This research will be conducted jointly by NCRM and the YGU headed by Prof. Isao Sakaida and the tenure is for a year and could be extended depending on the outcome of the initial phase of the work.
Congratulating Mr. Manjunath at his office, Mr. Kazuo Minagawa, the consul general of Japan, expressed his happiness over such synergy based collaboration happening between Indian and Japanese institutes and advised Mr Manjunath to learn the techniques in the YGU so that he can propagate it to his colleagues back in India upon return and said he hopes such collaborations will help in future, several ailing patients.
Mr. Manjunath hails from Madurai and he joined NCRM in 2006 after a post graduate degree in Microbiology. Incidentally he is also one of the first batch of PhD candidates in stem cell research, NCRM has started in collaboration with Acharya Nagarjuna University and the topic of his research also falls in the same line, said Dr Samuel JK Abraham, Director, NCRM. He added that, “With this humble beginning we are hopeful more young cell biologists and biotech graduates will have an opportunity for such training in Japan in the days to come, provided they prove themselves first”. |
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