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वैज्ञानिक नवाचार से राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा तक: डॉ. W. सेल्वमूर्ति का प्रेरणादायक योगदान

Khushi Khandelwal — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 10:30:00 +0000

डॉ. W. सेल्वमूर्ति

उद्योग का योगदान अपनी नवाचारों को स्केल करने की क्षमता के माध्यम से है, जो वैज्ञानिक खोजों को व्यावहारिक अनुप्रयोगों और उत्पादों में बदलता है।

डॉ. डब्ल्यू. सेल्वमूर्ति वर्तमान में अमिटी विश्वविद्यालय के विज्ञान, प्रौद्योगिकी और नवाचार फाउंडेशन के अध्यक्ष, अमिटी विज्ञान और नवाचार निदेशालय के महानिदेशक और अमिटी विश्वविद्यालय, छत्तीसगढ़ के चांसलर के रूप में कार्यरत हैं। जैव चिकित्सा अनुसंधान और विकास के क्षेत्र में उनके महत्वपूर्ण योगदान की सराहना की गई है।

डॉ. देबलीना भट्टाचार्य, सहायक संपादक ने उनसे जैव चिकित्सा विज्ञान के क्षेत्र में उनके अनुसंधान में किए गए महत्वपूर्ण कार्यों के बारे में साक्षात्कार लिया।

1. आपके 40 साल के करियर में, विशेष रूप से मानव शारीरिक विज्ञान पर, आपने जो महत्वपूर्ण नवाचार किए हैं, वे क्या हैं? और आप इन नवाचारों को भविष्य की रक्षा रणनीतियों पर किस तरह से प्रभाव डालते हुए देखते हैं?

जब मैं रक्षा अनुसंधान और विकास संगठन (DRDO) में अपनी 40 वर्षों की सेवा को पीछे मुड़कर देखता हूं, तो मेरा शोध मुख्य रूप से सैनिकों के स्वास्थ्य और संचालन की क्षमता को बढ़ाने के लिए जीवन समर्थन प्रौद्योगिकियों को प्रदान करने पर केंद्रित था। कुछ महत्वपूर्ण अनुसंधान और विकास योगदानों में दो राज्य चयन प्रणालियाँ, कम्प्यूटरीकृत पायलट चयन प्रणाली, ट्रेड आवंटन के लिए कम्प्यूटरीकृत क्षमता परीक्षण और फॉलो-अप के लिए डिजिटल डेटाबेस बनाना शामिल हैं। इन योगदानों ने सशस्त्र बलों के कर्मियों के चयन में मदद की ताकि व्यक्तित्व लक्षणों, क्षमताओं और प्रेरणा की वर्तमान और भविष्य की जरूरतों को पूरा किया जा सके।

मिलिट्री पोषण को विभिन्न ऑपरेशनल वातावरणों में युद्धक क्षमता बढ़ाने के लिए बेहतर किया गया है। शीतकालीन कपड़े, NBC सुरक्षा किट, पायलटों के लिए एंटी-G सूट, नाविकों के लिए सबमरीन बचाव सूट, पैराट्रूपर्स के लिए फ्री फॉल युद्धक कपड़े और रेगिस्तान में टैंक क्रू ऑपरेशन के लिए कूलिंग सूट जैसी वस्त्र और सुरक्षा उपकरणों का विकास किया गया है।
जैव चिकित्सा क्षेत्र में हमारे अनुसंधान के आधार पर पारंपरिक प्रणालियों का उपयोग करके सैनिकों के प्रदर्शन में वृद्धि की कोशिश की गई है, जैसे कि योग, हर्बल दवाएं और होम्योपैथी। उच्च ऊंचाई वाले सैन्य अभियानों के लिए तेजी से प्रौद्योगिकी समर्थन विकसित किया गया है। उच्च-ऊंचाई वाले पल्मोनरी एडिमा के इलाज के लिए नाइट्रिक ऑक्साइड और ऑक्सीजन का संयोजन किया गया है।

2. अकादमी, उद्योग और सरकारी एजेंसियों के बीच सहयोग को आप किस प्रकार बढ़ते हुए देख रहे हैं, और इसका जीवन विज्ञान और रक्षा अनुसंधान पर क्या प्रभाव हो सकता है?

अकादमी, उद्योग और सरकारी एजेंसियों के बीच बढ़ता हुआ सहयोग विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी के सभी क्षेत्रों के लिए महत्वपूर्ण है, विशेष रूप से जीवन विज्ञान और रक्षा अनुसंधान के लिए। यह त्रि-आयामी गठबंधन प्रत्येक क्षेत्र की ताकत का लाभ उठा सकता है। इस सहयोगी मॉडल को “ट्रिपल हेलिक्स” मॉडल के रूप में जाना जाता है, जो वैज्ञानिक अनुसंधान और प्रौद्योगिकी विकास की सीमाओं को बढ़ाने की क्षमता रखता है। इस गठबंधन द्वारा उत्पन्न संयोजन न केवल जोड़ने वाला होता है बल्कि गुणात्मक रूप से बढ़ाने वाला भी होता है, और यह जटिल समस्याओं को तेजी से और प्रभावी ढंग से हल करने के लिए नवाचारों के माध्यम से समाधान उत्पन्न करता है।

विश्वविद्यालय और अनुसंधान संस्थान ज्ञान, शोध और नवाचार के केंद्र होते हैं। अकादमिक क्षेत्र का योगदान जैविक प्रणालियों, नए सामग्रियों और कंप्यूटेशनल मॉडल जैसे गहरे दृष्टिकोणों को प्रदान करने में महत्वपूर्ण है। उद्योग नवाचारों को लागू करने और व्यावसायिक उत्पादों में बदलने की क्षमता प्रदान करता है।

सरकारी एजेंसियां अनुसंधान पहलों को नियामक दिशा, वित्तीय सहायता और रणनीतिक मार्गदर्शन प्रदान करती हैं, जो राष्ट्रीय प्राथमिकताओं से मेल खाती हैं।

यह त्रि-आयामी गठबंधन सैनिकों की सुरक्षा और संचालन क्षमता में सुधार करने वाली तकनीकों को बढ़ावा देने के लिए महत्वपूर्ण साबित हो सकता है।

3. जलवायु परिवर्तन के रक्षा रणनीतियों पर प्रभाव, विशेष रूप से अत्यधिक वातावरण में मानव प्रदर्शन पर इसके प्रभाव के बारे में आपके विचार क्या हैं?

जलवायु परिवर्तन का रक्षा रणनीतियों पर प्रभाव बहु-आयामी है, जो ऑपरेशनल वातावरण और भू-राजनीतिक परिदृश्य पर असर डालता है। जलवायु परिवर्तन न केवल पर्यावरणीय मुद्दों को जन्म देता है, बल्कि यह भू-राजनीतिक अस्थिरता, संघर्ष और मानवतावादी संकटों को भी उत्पन्न करता है, जो राष्ट्रीय और वैश्विक सुरक्षा पर गहरा प्रभाव डालते हैं।

रक्षा योजनाओं में जलवायु लचीलापन को एकीकृत करने की आवश्यकता है। इसमें जलवायु परिवर्तन के प्रभावों का व्यापक मूल्यांकन करना, विशेष उपकरणों और वस्त्रों की जरूरतों को पहचानना, और सैन्य बलों को विभिन्न पर्यावरणीय स्थितियों में अनुकूलन के लिए प्रशिक्षित करना शामिल है।

4. रक्षा अनुसंधान के भविष्य में कृत्रिम बुद्धिमत्ता (AI) का क्या भूमिका हो सकती है, विशेष रूप से मानव प्रदर्शन और जैव-रक्षा के क्षेत्रों में?

कृत्रिम बुद्धिमत्ता (AI) सैन्य बलों के रणनीतिक और ऑपरेशनल परिदृश्य को फिर से परिभाषित करेगा। AI बड़े डेटा सेट्स को प्रोसेस करने में सक्षम है, जो खुफिया विश्लेषण में मदद कर सकता है, और जैव-रक्षा जैसी जटिल चुनौतियों का सामना करने में मदद कर सकता है।

भविष्य में, AI का उपयोग निर्णय लेने की प्रक्रियाओं में किया जाएगा, जिससे ऑपरेशनल वातावरण में तेजी से और अधिक सूचित प्रतिक्रियाएँ संभव होंगी।

5. रक्षा कर्मियों के लिए तेजी से विकसित हो रही युद्ध तकनीकों के अनुकूल होने में सबसे बड़ी चुनौतियाँ क्या हैं?

युद्ध की तकनीक तेजी से विकसित हो रही है, और रक्षा बलों को इन बदलावों का सामना करने के लिए हर पहलू पर एक व्यापक दृष्टिकोण अपनाने की आवश्यकता है। इसमें साइबर युद्ध, स्वायत्त प्रणालियाँ और नेटवर्क-केंद्रित ऑपरेशन्स जैसी नई चुनौतियाँ शामिल हैं।

6. वैश्विक रक्षा बलों को रासायनिक और जैविक खतरों के लिए आज कैसे तैयार किया गया है, और इसमें क्या सुधार किए जाने चाहिए?

रासायनिक और जैविक खतरों के खिलाफ वैश्विक रक्षा बलों की तैयारियों को मजबूत करना बहुत महत्वपूर्ण है। COVID-19 महामारी से सीखे गए पाठों के बाद, यह स्पष्ट हो गया है कि तीव्र प्रतिक्रिया क्षमताएँ, उन्नत निगरानी और डिटेक्शन प्रणालियाँ और मजबूत अंतर्राष्ट्रीय सहयोग की आवश्यकता है।

7. आप विज्ञान शिक्षा और जागरूकता को बढ़ावा देने के लिए कौन सी पहलों में शामिल हैं?

मैं हमेशा विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी के क्षेत्र में नए विचारों को फैलाने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध रहा हूँ। मेरी गतिविधियों में सार्वजनिक सत्र, व्याख्यान और लेखन शामिल हैं जो विज्ञान के महत्व को लोगों तक पहुँचाने का प्रयास करते हैं।

8. आपके अनुसार, आने वाले वर्षों में हल करने के लिए सबसे महत्वपूर्ण वैज्ञानिक चुनौतियाँ क्या हैं?

नई उभरती प्रौद्योगिकियाँ जैसे सिंथेटिक बायोलॉजी, साइबर सुरक्षा और मानव-मशीन टीमिंग के साथ बड़ी चुनौतियाँ जुड़ी हुई हैं। इनका समाधान एक व्यापक और अंतरविभागीय दृष्टिकोण से किया जाना चाहिए।

9. आपके करियर का कौन सा क्षण आपके अनुसंधान की दिशा को महत्वपूर्ण रूप से प्रभावित करता है?

कई पहलुओं में मेरे कार्यों ने रक्षा अनुसंधान की दिशा को प्रभावित किया है, जैसे कश्मीर और कर्गिल युद्ध के बाद की तकनीकी जरूरतों के कारण उच्च ऊंचाई पर तैनाती के लिए तेजी से प्रौद्योगिकी समर्थन विकसित करना।

10. कृत्रिम बुद्धिमत्ता और जैव प्रौद्योगिकी जैसे उभरते प्रौद्योगिकियों के जीवन विज्ञान में अनुसंधान और व्यावहारिक अनुप्रयोगों में क्या परिवर्तन आए हैं?

यह एक परिवर्तनकारी समय है, विशेष रूप से जीवन विज्ञान के क्षेत्र में। कृत्रिम बुद्धिमत्ता और जैव प्रौद्योगिकी जैसे उभरते प्रौद्योगिकी जीवन विज्ञान में खोजों की गति को तेज कर रहे हैं और नई सीमाओं को खोल रहे हैं।

11. स्वास्थ्य क्षेत्र में युवा पेशेवरों को क्या सलाह देंगे?

स्वास्थ्य क्षेत्र में नए पेशेवरों को लगातार शिक्षा, प्रौद्योगिकी से परिचित होना और एक मरीज-केंद्रित दृष्टिकोण को अपनाना चाहिए, ताकि वे इस गतिशील वातावरण में सफलतापूर्वक योगदान कर सकें।

यह लेख मूल रूप से अंग्रेज़ी में लिखा गया था और इसे ChatGPT की सहायता से हिंदी में अनुवादित किया गया है। यद्यपि अनुवाद में सभी बिंदुओं को सटीक रूप से शामिल करने का प्रयास किया गया है, फिर भी इसमें वर्तनी या भाषा संबंधी कुछ त्रुटियाँ संभव हैं। यह अनुवाद किसी मानवीय प्रूफरीडिंग से नहीं गुज़रा है, इसलिए कृपया इस बात को ध्यान में रखते हुए इसे पढ़ें।

The post वैज्ञानिक नवाचार से राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा तक: डॉ. W. सेल्वमूर्ति का प्रेरणादायक योगदान appeared first on InnoHEALTH magazine.

A trip to Copenhagen for Bio-Europe 2018

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 09:58:36 +0000

A trip to the world’s healthiest and happiest city: Copenhagen for BIO-Europe 2018

On the windy streets of Copenhagen, children, young adults, and older people are all on bikes, with parents and their children on cargo bikes (a quarter of families in Copenhagen own one). It may look as though Copenhageners crave the outdoors, get a kick out of exercise, want to be fit and healthy. It may or may not be the reason. Maybe, it’s just the easiest way to get anywhere.

Admiring all this and more, we at InnovatioCuris, attended the 24th Annual International partnering conference BIO-Europe 2018. BIO-Europe, scheduled for 5th – 7th November 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark, a pre-eminent conference for the life sciences, is Europe’s largest partnering conference that serves the global biotechnology industry. It brought together the thought leaders and international decisionmakers from the whole healthcare sector including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, investors and policymakers, offering networking opportunities, workshops & panel discussions, high profile exhibition and B2B meetings. It provided an excellent networking platform for strategic partnerships.

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InnovatioCuris supported the event as a media sponsor with focus on networking through B2B meetings and exhibition, along with the aim of strengthening its ecosystem with innovative partners in order to bring down the healthcare delivery cost and improve the quality of care.

It was an exceptional experience coupled with reinforcing existing partnerships and scouting new stakeholders / global experts in the healthcare space.

We came back home with warm memories and new friends. We look forward to creating an impact together by fostering innovations in the health sector.

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Parthvee Jain is an engineering graduate with specialization and interests in fields like Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food Processing, and Nutraceuticals. Connecting European Healthcare innovation leaders with the Indian healthcare system and pioneers, she heads the market access program and partnerships at InnovatioCuris: impacting organizational performance through expert research, analysis and evaluating market competitive conditions, current and emerging trends, and industry-specific solutions.

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The post A trip to Copenhagen for Bio-Europe 2018 appeared first on InnoHEALTH magazine.

Cyber-Biosecurity: Are we ready?

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 08:42:50 +0000

Bertrand Russell once said, ‘War doesn’t determine who is right−only who is left”, thus ‘we need to update, upgrade and be prepared for our own survival’. These words sound more relevant in the contemporary phase in the wake of fast changing global scenario and emerging inevitability for updating virtually by spilled of seconds.

Amalgamation of biotechnological and information technology advancement in the 21st century has altered our world at the fundamental level which is evident in the area of health, manufacturing, and food security. Humankind has also witnessed malicious bugs like Y2K and Wanna cry in biological and cyber field respectively. We have reached new landmarks on our understanding of how biological systems work and also discovered ways to meaningfully manipulate these systems as per our advantage/ requirement. Biotech tools, such as gene drives, can deliberately engineer inheritable genetic traits into wild populations, offering a powerful new way to escape from certain vector-borne diseases.

Gene editing tools such as CRISPR-CAS9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats associated protein-9 nuclease) are being used globally for quick and precise gene editing. Researchers like to use computers to analyze DNA, operate lab machines and store genetic information. In the health sector, the digitization of biology & metabolic engineering accelerated the development of new vaccines, drugs, and painkillers. Agriculture is becoming smarter/digitized, with farmers relying on data-driven decision acquired through sensors planted in the ground, satellites guiding tractor movements and other new practices. But these emerging capabilities come with a whole new category of vulnerabilities and risks.

Also Read: IIT Kanpur Braces Up to Prevent Cyber Attacks

Over the last five years “technological barriers to acquire and use biological weapon has been significantly eroded.” The security impact of biotech advances goes beyond bioweapon. For example, developments in metabolic pathway engineering also offer opportunities to produce illegal drugs such as heroin. Scientists have already identified how to make the active compounds in other narcotics, such as for cannabis and precursors of LSD. What if a terrorist group or a despotic regime tries to spread modified organisms aimed at striking troops, frightening civilians, or putting food production in disarray? The failed attempt of Japanese cult to obtain Ebola strains from South Africa is one such indicator.

Recently Jean and coworkers (2018) highlighted the risks of using gene sequencing technologies to corrupt the databases by altering sequences or annotations. In this article, computer scientists designed a DNA sample that when sequenced, resulted in a data file which enabled the hacker to control the sequencing computer remotely and gave access to the hacker to make changes in DNA sequences. These alterations could delay a research program causing capital, labor loss or can be used in act of terrorism for uncontrolled production of toxins or infectious agents. To mitigate these risks, the culture of the life sciences community needs to shift from trusting blindly to a highly aware and trained community. This also requires intricate relationships between the computational and experimental dimensions of product development workflows.

The diverse nature of pathogens and toxins with their potential to be used as a biowarfare agent (BW) could be attributed to multiple factors. These include infectivity (the number of organisms required to cause disease), virulence (the severity of the disease caused), transmissibility (ease of spreading from person to person), and incubation period (the time from exposure of a biological agent to the onset of illness). All these attributes are manageable by modern biotechnology and information related to such experimentation trials is key to any covert attack using these for BW.

Similarly, in the cyber world, there is a diversity of malicious codes. These include viruses (programs that replicate in target machinery); worms (self-sustaining programs) and carriers such as a trojan horse to perform a legitimate function with malicious activity. Additionally, Botnets, or networks of computers infected with malicious code, can be coordinated to perform distributed denial of service attacks. For biological weapons, delivery vehicles range from advanced aerial spray technology to contamination of food products or water, while malicious code in cyberspace can be delivered by usage portals, email, web browsers, chat clients, web-enabled applications, and updates. The cyber threat has expanded dramatically in recent years with a series of damage. Terrorists are using cyber capabilities over traditional methods to target 104 countries including India.

Also Read: Time To Take Some Intelligent Decisions

Governments and security experts have singled out the life sciences sector as being significantly vulnerable to cybercrime. In cybersecurity terms, innovation is fast 50 Volume 3 | Issue 3 | July-September 2018 becoming a double-edged sword for life sciences clients. Recently FireEye disclosed the threat posed by two Advance Persistent Threat (APT) groups which gained access to the environment of a leading pharmaceutical company for up to three years prior to detection. They stole IP and business data from the victim, information on bio cultures, products, cost reports, and other details pertaining to the company’s operations abroad. There is nothing more important to a pharmaceutical organization than the formula for one of its new drugs.

For cyber biosecurity, employee training should be given priority. It can greatly increase an organization’s general awareness of these new risks. Similar to biosafety training, cybersecurity training modules and policies should be introduced. Secondly, organizations should perform a thorough analysis of its exposure to cyber biosecurity risks not covered by existing biosafety and biosecurity policies.

Training exercises based on this type of analysis will encourage participants to review their workflows and identify their vulnerabilities. It is high time now to evolve a policy framework to detect and prevent security threats that may compromise life sciences assets. It includes guidelines on synthetic DNA targeted companies that provide DNA synthesis services to monitor research focus and relates features.

Bioinformatics software is still not hardened against attack. Encouragement of widespread adoption of standard software best security practices like input sanitization, the use of memory safe languages or bounds checking at buffers, and regular security audits is necessary. Patching still remains challenging as the analysis software are often located in individually managed repositories and not regularly updated. One solution is to use a centralized repository to manage updates and deliver patches, similar to the APT package manager.

These could also be signed to ensure their authenticity. In the case of file sharing, the sequencing files themselves could be signed by verified research groups before uploading them to centralized databases. This is just the glimpse of the long list of strategies that need immediate deployment, continuous review, and improvement with time.

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HOW GENETIC TESTING CAN INNOVATE HEALTHCARE DELIVERY

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Tue, 02 May 2017 06:16:23 +0000

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How Genetic Testing can Innovate Healthcare Delivery

Dr. V.L Ramprasad holds a Master’s Degree and Ph.D. from BITS, Pilani. He has worked as Scientist (Molecular Genetics) at Vision Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya and was handling Affymetrix and Illumina technologies at Spinco Biotech. He also worked as Principal Scientist at SciGenom Labs. He has 17 peer-reviewed publications to his credit.

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Though in a nascent stage, precision medicine is evolving at a fast pace. There are many labs set across the country and world which offer genetic testing at an affordable fee. Moving from a traditional medical model of treating pathologies to an individualized predictive and preventive model of personalized medicine promises to reduce the healthcare cost on an overburdened and overwhelmed system. The increasing number of catalogs of causative and risk genes will provide a foundation for Personalized Medicine and pharmacogenomics. The advent of NGS has helped in bringing down the cost of genome sequencing to less than $1000. However, there are many other new technologies on development that will make the sequencing even faster and more economical.

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The current medical model focuses on the detection and treatment of pathologies. Treating disorders, especially on advanced states, is very expensive for patients and society in general. The Human Genome Project not only provided the essential reference map for the human genome but also stimulated the development of technology and analytic tools to process massive quantities of genomic data. Thus, accelerated the early detection of disorders and the identification of pharmacogenetic markers to customize treatments. Furthermore, the Human Genome Project has significantly contributed to the discovery of numerous genetic markers, several human disease-specific genomes, including cancers. Because of increased discovery rate of clinically relevant biomarkers, the relevant application of conventional molecular diagnostic methods like low- and/or medium-throughput sanger sequencing is restricted as they cannot screen such a huge number of genetic markers with a limited tumor/disease specific material. The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies has not only reduced sequencing cost by orders of magnitude, but also significantly increased the throughput with just a few or single cell. One such new development in pre-natal genetic testing is “pre-implantation genetic screening”.

Pre-Implantation Genetic Screening

Chromosome segregation during female meiosis is particularly error prone in humans. These chromosomal abnormalities also called as Aneuploidy, worsen with advancing age. Many of recent studies have demonstrated that aneuploidy rates in the oocytes of women over 40 are over 75%, whereas approximately a quarter of oocytes from women in their early 30s are chromosomally abnormal.[1] A majority of human embryos produced from such oocytes using in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques are aneuploid and has been shown that they fail to implant in the uterus, although a minority do succeed in forming a pregnancy only to later miscarry.[2] Hence, reliable identification of euploid (healthy) embryos is inevitable, but the main obstacle to testing human embryos for aneuploidy is the extremely limited amount of tissue available for analysis. Thus, most methods currently available for the genetic analysis of pre-implantation embryos may not be suitable and suffer from shortcomings which limit their clinical applicability. A few chromosome screening methods applicable to single cells biopsied from pre-implantation embryos are available, but the high cost of testing has restricted their usage.[3] New advancements in NGS technology provided an excellent alternative tool for the identification of chromosomal abnormalities using a few or single cell.

Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)

Next-generation sequencing popularly referred to as ‘high-throughput sequencing’. The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies in the context of pre-natal genetic testing provides highly accurate, low-cost diagnosis of aneuploidy in cells from human pre-implantation embryos and is rapid enough to allow testing without embryo cryopreservation. Many reports indicated NGS improves IVF success rates. Thus, NGS becomes a reliable aneuploidy screening method and has the potential to revolutionize pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS).[4]

Furthermore, NGS becomes an integral part of precision medicine as it provides a viable alternative for characterizing genomic aberrations in tumors/other human disease for predictive and prognostic purposes with its massively parallel sequencing capability. This specific advantage of NGS technology enables testing of multiple genes/clinically relevant biomarkers per tumor as the standard-of-care, which may not be feasible with low- and medium-throughput traditional techniques such as Sanger sequencing, pyrosequencing, allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR).[5,6,7]

The predominantly used NGS technologies are from:
• Illumina (HiSeq 2500/4000/X Ten etc.)
• Roche Applied Science/454 Life Sciences
• Life Technologies (Ion Torrent/Proton)
• Pacific Biosciences (Sequel)

The application of NGS technology in genetic testing is enormously increasing because it requires a single input of relatively low-quantity DNA or RNA for the screening of multiple markers, in contrast to traditional sequencing technologies, which need cumulatively larger quantities of input nucleic acid. NGS can provide simultaneous screening of a variety of genomic aberrations such as single-nucleotide variants (SNVs), multiple-nucleotide variants (MNVs), small and large insertions and deletions, and copy number variation (CNVs) of the genes. However, the benefits offered by these NGS technologies come with several challenges that must be adequately addressed before they can be transformed from research tools to routine clinical practices. Integrating NGS into a clinical diagnostic setting requires thorough validation with respect to consistent performance and accuracy, as per the stringent regulations and guidelines established by the regulatory agencies governing the clinical laboratories.[8]

Genetic Testing is Now More Accessible

More than a thousand genetic tests are available today and the number is still increasing. Genetic test panels give patients an insight into diseases which they may have inherited and give them an understanding of what preventive measures need to be taken. The results help understand the chances of a person liable to get inflicted by a genetic disorder and passing it on to someone else and vice versa. An expert in genetics is the best person to seek advice from, for those wanting to take a genetic test as such tests include risks and have their limitations as well. There are many labs set across the country and world which offer genetic testing at an affordable fee. Though many test labs have been established and it has been made more accessible, it continues to remain an expensive affair for the middle and lower middle sections of society in India.

Precision Medicine

Precision medicine or ‘specific treatment’ helps researchers and doctors to understand the exact treatment they need to offer to the patients. The advent of precision medicine is moving us closer to more precise, predictable and powerful health care that is customized for the individual patient. The approach of personalized therapy involves having a deep understanding of the unpredictability in a person’s genes, his/her environment and lifestyle. A complete bespoke treatment with appropriate decisions customized to a person’s medical condition. The therapies adopted range from imaging to molecular diagnostics and analytics/software and will be in accordance with the person’s genetic analysis. As mentioned previously, NGS becomes an integral part of precision medicine because of its high throughput and multiplexing capabilities which enables to analyze many clinically relevant markers across many samples.

The Future

Though it’s a nascent stage, precision medicine is evolving at a fast pace. Moving from a traditional medical model of treating pathologies to an individualized predictive and preventive model of personalized medicine promises to reduce the healthcare cost on an overburdened and overwhelmed system. The increasing number of catalogs of causative and risk genes will provide a foundation for Personalized Medicine and pharmacogenomics. The advent of NGS has helped in bringing down the cost of genome sequencing to less than $1000. However, there are many other new technologies on development that will make the sequencing even faster and more economical, such as Oxford Nanopore technologies (GridION™ System based on nanopore-based sensing). The future perspective of this advanced technology may reduce the cost of screening diseases specific gene panel to $100 within a time-frame of an hour. Research is proving that the therapies which are intended for one type of cancer could, in the future, be used to treat other types of cancers, on the premise of changes occurring in a person’s DNA. Discovery of mutations via sequencing and optional treatments are some of the findings through the process of sequencing and these may offer much hope towards better customized treatments for individuals.

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Refernces:
[1] Fragouli E, Alfarawati S, Goodall NN, Sánchez-García JF, Colls P, Wells D. The cytogenetics of polar bodies: insights into female meiosis and the diagnosis of aneuploidy. Mol Hum Reprod, 2011;17:286–95.
[2] Scott RT, Ferry K, Su J, Tao X, Scott K, Treff NR. Comprehensive chromosome screening is highly predictive of the reproductive potential of human embryos: a prospective, blinded, nonselection study.Fertil Steril,2012;97:870-5.
[3] Fragouli E, Alfarawati S, Daphnis DD, Goodall NN, Mania A, Griffiths T, Gordon A, Wells D. Cytogenetic analysis of human blastocysts with the use of FISH, CGH and aCGH: scientific data and technical evaluation. Hum Reprod 2011;26:480–90.
[4] Hong KH, Taylor DM, Forman E, Tao X, Treff NR. Development of a novel next-gen sequencing (NGS) methodology for accurate characterization of genome-wide mitochondrial heteroplasmy in human embryos. Fertil Steril 2012;98:S58–9.
[5] Roychowdhury S, Chinnaiyan AM. Translating genomics for precision cancer medicine. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet. 2014; 15():395-415.
[6] Previati M, Manfrini M, Galasso M, Zerbinati C, Palatini J, Gasparini P, Volinia S. Next generation analysis of breast cancer genomes for precision medicine. Cancer Lett. 2013 Oct 1; 339(1):1-7.
[7] Roper N, Stensland KD, Hendricks R, Galsky MD. The landscape of precision cancer medicine clinical trials in the United States. Cancer Treat Rev. 2015 May; 41(5):385-90.
[8] Jennings L, Van Deerlin VM, Gulley ML, College of American Pathologists Molecular Pathology Resource Committee. Recommended principles and practices for validating clinical molecular pathology tests. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2009 May; 133(5):743-55.

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What is ScanBalt BioRegion?

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 06:45:54 +0000

The article covers, what exactly ScanBalt BioRegion is and how it aims at innovating in the healthcare sector of the European regions, using the concept of smart specialization and collaborative funding.

ScanBalt BioRegion is a macro-region within health and life sciences encompassing Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Northern Germany, Northern Netherlands and North-western Russia (The Baltic Sea Region). The region has more than 50 health care clusters and networks, which are mainly triple helix-based regional networks with coordinated involvement of public institutions, authorities, administration and private companies.

ScanBalt BioRegion is home to more than 50 university hospitals and 60 universities with a health and life science focus including 25 with a focus on medical technology and 75 health care sector science parks. The region is host to at least 3000 companies within health and life sciences.

ScanBalt BioRegion is a flagship in the European Union (EU) strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and has, since 2002, acted as a smart specialization platform, promoting coordinated funding between various EU funds, national and regional public-private financing.

Strong market drive in the healthcare sector[1]

Demographic shift is a major engine of the healthcare sector throughout ScanBalt BioRegion. Every segment of the health sector across the entire region is currently growing. While the population of the Nordic countries is constantly rising, Germany, Poland and the Baltic States are confronted by declining population. This shift may of course be affected by current and future migration tendencies.

Consequently, the demand for medical supplies and services is growing at an above-average rate, especially in the areas of nursing, geriatric and psychosocial care, palliative medicine, preventative medicine, rehabilitation, sport, wellness, health and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL).

In particular, ScanBalt BioRegion is a dynamic growth market for medical technology.

Poland and the Baltic States have a great need to catch up in the area of technical medical equipment (and the more stringent technical and hygiene standards of the EU). The demand for efficient and high-grade technical medical equipment (such as surgical installations, diagnostic apparatus, monitoring systems and tele-medicine) in the northern and western parts of the Baltic Sea Region is also on a continuous upward trend.

There are large-scale modernization and expansion plans in the pipeline in the hospital sector across the region. A decisive role is played by the EU development funding in Poland and the Baltic States. There are still differences across the Baltic Sea Region in terms of the frequency and quality of the available medical treatment and an increase in cross-border patient streams is anticipated. Thus specialization, cooperation and common quality standards are needed throughout the region.

In the medium and long term, ScanBalt BioRegion is among the most dynamic healthcare markets in Europe. Healthcare spending in Poland and the Baltic States is growing at a disproportionately high rate and is fast approaching the average for Europe. For several years, the growth of employment in the health sector has been remarkably more dynamic in the entire ScanBalt BioRegion than that of employment overall (except in Sweden).

Promoting innovation

Health care is split into sectors which function separately: health care providers, enterprises & research institutions, regulatory and financing institutions. Support for innovation to develop new products and services thus has to be addressed in a holistic way. Focus on value creation and societal usefulness is essential for the long-term stability of health care systems. Unmet health needs and user-driven innovation are the key success factors for a thriving innovation system.

As models of care evolve and needs change, there is a need to bridge the existing cross- sectored gaps by involving key regional actors in the value chain of healthcare innovation[2]. The main objective is to support the creation of sustainable, cost-effective, citizen-centric healthcare systems, promoting new jobs and businesses.

A key element is to strengthen trans-national and cross-sectored approaches for launching projects and initiatives aiming at removing disparities, gaps and barriers and fostering cooperation for innovation within the health economy, in order to overcome the major societal challenges and bring innovative products into the market. A ScanBalt BioRegion health care innovation ecosystem provides a promising model implementing innovation support activities in a macro-regional context, with a complex network of entities and relationships. Such an ecosystem in ideal form ensures that all individuals are given optimal conditions to apply their skills and competencies, while contributing to the interconnectedness and interdependency of all stakeholders[3].

Smart specialization and coordination between funding

Smart specialization should prioritize domains, areas and economic activities where regions or countries have a competitive advantage or have the potential to generate knowledge-driven growth and to bring about the economic transformation needed to tackle the major challenges of the society, nature and environment. [4] To have a smart specialization strategy calls for making choices in investment-related matters. Thus, smart specialization and coordination in funding are closely connected.

Collaboration in ScanBalt BioRegion not only assists to promote smart specialization in the region and distribute best practices, but also takes a much more active role by building and implementing a macro-regional strategy based on the principles of smart specialization, which can be reflected into national or regional policies.

It is a process of consensus setting within the regions, identifying top priorities and appointing leaders and ambassadors of various concrete initiatives, having the capacity to drive them forward. This process has been going on in ScanBalt BioRegion since 2001. However a macro-region has a potential much wider, ensuring alignment between the structural funds and the EU policies. In particular, macro-regional collaboration can mobilize regional and national investments, which otherwise would not have been available for trans-national collaboration following a common vision and strategy for the macro-region.

In ScanBalt BioRegion this is most clearly seen by the role of regional liaison offices who invest into trans-national collaboration within topics of their particular interest and where they have a specific competence, although still referring to the overall strategy for ScanBalt BioRegion.

Collaboration outside ScanBalt BioRegion

While it is a top priority to build up the internal innovation ecosystem in ScanBalt BioRegion, collaboration with other regions and countries is of huge interest as well. ScanBalt BioRegion is actively trying to promote partnering with other EU macro-regions such as the Danube Area or the Mediterranean.

This is mainly handled via various EU projects. Outside the EU, focus has so far been mostly on Vietnam where there are ongoing projects of training of medical doctors. Collaboration with India is an exciting new topic, which can combine the forces of two fast growing health economies and result in new business opportunities. The focus of the Indian government on biotechnology is a very good background for such efforts. In any case ScanBalt BioRegion together with the partners always tries to contain the efforts in projects, which ensure concrete deliveries.

Of course the individual regions, clusters, networks, universities and industries in ScanBalt BioRegion, all have their own priorities and activities for collaboration but ScanBalt BioRegion is an add-on to their individual efforts and may serve as a one-stop-entry and facilitate the processes.

ScanBalt® fmba: the organization promoting health economy on Top of Europe

ScanBalt® fmba is a not-for-profit association representing Scanbalt BioRegion. The ambitions of the regions and the regional networks constitute the basis of the organization. The mission is to make ScanBalt BioRegion a globally competitive Health and Bio economy.

The vision is to be a catalyst, facilitator and developer of concrete projects and strategies; to provide a platform for collaboration and visibility and to Influence and modify relevant policy agendas. ScanBalt aims to provide added value for the members in their pursuit of regional ambitions and promote mutual beneficial relationships between them. It acts as a cost-efficient value-added service provider and the members have a direct return of investment on their membership of approximately 15:1 on average.

The key activities are:

Think Tank: Continuous dialogue between regions, clinics, clusters, SMEs and funding sources

Accelerator: Workshops for concrete projects ideas in the pursue of funding

Match-making: Between health care and tech providers, investors and decision makers

Communication: ScanBalt News (approx 20,000 subscribers), web, social media, events

It is possible for regions, companies and institutions located outside the ScanBalt BioRegion to become associated members, which in essence have rights, services and benefits equal to other members. This may be a tool to promote interaction with potential partners in the region.

References:

[1] Based on: The Health Economy in the Baltic Sea Region: Challenges and Opportunities, ScanBalt Nov 2013 – A publication from the BSHR HealthPort project co-financed by the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007 – 2013.

[2] Driving cross-sectoral innovation in health and life sciences – An Innovation Agenda for the Baltic Sea Region Health Economy; BSHR HealthPort, Oct 2013, http://scanbalt.org/projects/finalised+projects/bshr+healthport/reports

[3] Blank, W., Frank, P., & Karopka, T. (2013). Health and Life Sciences as Drivers for Regional Development and Prosperity in the Baltic Sea Region. Journal of East-West Business, 19(1-2), 122–137.

[4] http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ris3faq#1

About the author

Peter Frank, General Secretary of ScanBalt® fmba since 2004. He has more than 18 years’ experience with cluster development and management, public-private innovation collaborations and public affairs. In addition he has worked as a researcher and as an auditor.

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