The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : MoU for study on cell membranes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 27, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

MoU for study on cell membranes

Staff Reporter

PACT ON RESEARCH: The director of National Centre for Biological Sciences, K. Vijay Raghavan (left), and president of Japan's Science and Technology Agency, Kazuki Okimura, signing a memorandum of understanding in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Phot o: Sampath Kumar G.P.

BANGALORE: Satyajit Mayor of the National Centre for Biological Studies (NCBS) and Akihiro Kusumi, membrane biophysicist, will spend the next five years studying the two dimensional nature of cell membrane and how it works.

This work will have a great bearing in drug manufacture, said Prof. Kusumi at the signing of a memorandum of understanding on membrane mechanisms between Japan's Science and Technology Agency (JST), under its International Cooperative Research Project (ICORP), and NCBS here on Wednesday.

This is the first time that India is part of ICORP. The agreement is inclusive of Intellectual Property Rights acquired as a result of the collaboration.

"A part of our study will focus on how viruses enter the cell structure and also on what kind of drugs will be effective," Prof. Kusumi said.

He said that many institutions have come forward and evinced interest in collaborating with both scientists in the area of cell membrane responses to virus attack, especially in relation with HIV/AIDS.

The five-year study will focus on the two-dimensional nature of cell membranes using single cells and deal with mechanisms of signalling and membrane traffic.

"This is the key to understanding cancer and nutritional uptake of cells," said Prof. Mayor.

Over 30 students from NCBS will work on the project, which is estimated to cost 800 million yen for five years with equal contributions from JST and NCBS. The director of NCBS, K. Vijay Raghavan, said very few institutions in the world have the expertise to come together and conduct research on the nature of cell membrane. While Prof. Kusumi will study how molecules are organised on the cell surface, Prof. Mayor will study how cells respond to the outside world.

Kazuki Okimura, president of JST, said ICORP projects with Asian countries have so far been limited.

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