– Pratibha Gopalakrishna

Illustration of the new process developed by PN Rangarajan’s lab (Image courtesy: Neetu Rajak)

Mass production of recombinant proteins using yeast cell “factories” needs methanol, a compound that requires safe handling, carries the risk of catching fire, and sometimes produces harmful byproducts. Researchers at the Department of Biochemistry (BC), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have now developed an alternative safer process that instead relies on a common food additive called mono-sodium glutamate (MSG).

Recombinant proteins, such as vaccine antigens, insulin and monoclonal antibodies, are mass-produced by growing modified bacterial, viral or mammalian cells in large bioreactors. The most widely used organism is the yeast Pichia pastoris (now called Komagataella phaffii). It contains a unique promoter – a specific gene region which can be activated by methanol. This promoter codes for an enzyme called alcohol oxidase (AOX).

To mass-produce a recombinant protein, the gene coding for that protein is spliced into the yeast genome right next to the AOX promoter. The yeast cells are then fed glycerol or glucose as the carbon source. Once enough cells have formed, methanol is added, which then activates the AOX promoter, and the cells start producing the recombinant protein in copious amounts.
Most industries use this methanol-induced process for producing recombinant proteins. However, methanol is highly flammable and hazardous, requiring stringent safety precautions, points out PN Rangarajan, Professor at BC and corresponding author of the study published in Microbial Cell Factories. Methanol also metabolises to form hydrogen peroxide which can induce oxidative stress in the yeast cells or damage the recombinant proteins.

To solve this problem, Trishna Dey, a former PhD student at BC, started looking for alternatives. After an extensive search, the team found that mono-sodium glutamate (MSG), a USFDA approved food additive, can activate a different promoter in the yeast genome that codes for an enzyme called phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK). Activating this promoter with MSG led to protein production similar to methanol activation of the AOX promoter.
Optimising the cell culture medium for this new and untested process was challenging, says Neetu Rajak, first author and PhD student at BC. For a long time, the yeast cells grew poorly in shake flasks and produced very little recombinant protein. “There was a time when we almost gave up because we thought it was not going to work,” recalls Rangarajan.

Top: Yash Sharma, Neetu Rajak, and Vedanth Bellad; Bottom right: PN Rangarajan, Bottom left: Trishna Dey (Photo courtesy: Neetu Rajak)

The group eventually figured out that using MSG alone was not enough. Vedanth Bellad and Yash Sharma, project assistants at BC and co-authors, explain that they tried supplementing the culture with various other compounds, until one finally did the trick: ethanol. Adding ethanol helped the cells grow faster, which increased the biomass and the amount of recombinant protein produced. Ethanol is also safer for yeast cells compared to methanol, as it does not produce toxic byproducts when broken down.
To test their process, the team tried producing the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain – a widely-used vaccine antigen that has been successfully expressed in yeast and mammalian cells. They found that their new expression system produced twice the amount of antigen compared to the methanol-induced process.
The researchers hope that this novel and indigenous expression system can be used in biotech industries to mass-produce valuable proteins including milk and egg proteins, baby food supplements and nutraceuticals, apart from therapeutic molecules. An Indian patent has been granted for the expression system and a US patent has been filed. The team is also looking for industry collaborators to scale up the system for mass production.

REFERENCE: 
Rajak N, Dey T, Sharma Y, Bellad V, Rangarajan PN, Unlocking Nature’s Toolbox: glutamate-inducible recombinant protein production from the Komagatella phaffii PEPCK promoter, Microbial Cell Factories (2024).

CONTACT: 
PN Rangarajan 
Professor 
Department of Biochemistry 
Indian Institute of Science (IISc) 
Email: pnr@iisc.ac.in 
Phone: 080-22932540
Website: https://biochem.iisc.ac.in/p-n-rangarajan.php  

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: 
a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release.
b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in.

22 May 2024

Fujitsu Limited and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have signed an MoU to bring together researchers with diverse theoretical and systems backgrounds. The collaboration aims to lay down the algorithmic foundations for the field of data science across the full breadth of scientific issues that arise in the rich and complex processes which use data to make decisions. It will also focus on modeling issues, inferential issues, computational issues, and application-related issues.

The MoU was signed between IISc and Fujitsu Limited on 22 May 2024 at the IISc Bangalore campus. Faculty members Soumyendu Raha and Debnath Pal, Professors at the Department of Computational and Data Sciences, are the Principal Investigators from the IISc side.

The MoU focuses on joint research towards the creation of standards, guidelines and protocols for trustworthy and responsible use of research data. It also focuses on outreach activities to promote knowledge dissemination in the High Performance Computing (HPC) domain. IISc and Fujitsu researchers will work jointly on areas such as high dimensions and spikes; graphs, diffusion maps, and semi-supervised learning; spectral clustering; concentration inequalities; sparse vectors and low-rank matrices; sparse recovery and scarification; stochastic block models and synchronisation problems.

The initiative will emphasise the exploration of new high performance computation paradigms and their realisation. The emerging technological field of joint research in high-performance algorithms will be the thematic core of these efforts, in order to develop effective and useful solutions for data science problems.
 
CONTACT
IISc Office of Communications | news@iisc.ac.in
 

–Akash Kalita

From left to right; Abhilash Vijay Nair, Anmol Singh, Dipshikha Chakravortty
(Credit: DC Lab/IISc)

Food-borne diseases like typhoid, caused by Salmonella Typhimurium, are a severe threat to public health, especially in India. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics has allowed this bacterium to become resistant, posing a major hurdle in treating infections.   
“Salmonella’s strategies to survive are par excellence. With an increase in antimicrobial resistance in Salmonella, it is just impossible to eradicate,” says Dipshikha Chakravortty, Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB), Indian Institute of Science (IISc).   

In a recent study published in Redox Biology, she and her team have pinpointed how the bacterium uses a key molecule called spermidine to shield itself from the onslaught of the host’s defence machinery. They also find that an existing FDA-approved drug can reduce spermidine production, weakening the bacterium's ability to cause infection.  

When Salmonella infects a host, it is engulfed by macrophages, cells that are part of the host’s immune system. After engulfment, macrophages start increasing the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) inside themselves. This creates a hostile environment for the bacteria to survive.   

One of the key molecules that Salmonella seems to depend on is a polyamine called spermidine. Not only does the bacteria synthesise its own spermidine, but also hijacks the host machinery to produce more of the molecule.   

In the current study, the researchers found that spermidine is crucial for Salmonella to protect itself from oxidative stress inside the macrophages. Spermidine specifically regulates the expression of an enzyme called GspSA, which causes spermidine to bind strongly to a protein called Glutathionyl (GSH). This conjugate forms chemical bonds with various bacterial proteins, strengthening and shielding them during oxidative stress. Mice infected with mutant Salmonella lacking the ability to import and produce spermidine showed higher survival rates compared to the ones infected with normal Salmonella.  

“Spermidine from both bacteria and the host acts like a robust weapon for Salmonella to safeguard against reactive oxygen species,” explains Chakravortty.   

With this revelation, the team began looking for drugs that could deplete spermidine levels in the host.   

The team focused on D, L-alpha-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO), an FDA-approved drug used widely for treating human African trypanosomiasis. They found that DFMO irreversibly blocks ornithine decarboxylase, an enzyme involved in a key step of the spermidine biosynthesis pathway in the host, reducing its levels and making the bacteria more vulnerable. Mice which were administered the drug showed better survival rates.    

“Since we are targeting the host machinery, and not targeting the bacteria, it will not evolve genetically,” explains Abhilash Vijay Nair, a former PhD student at MCB and the first author of the paper.   

DFMO also acts on another enzyme called arginase, which is responsible for ensuring that an amino acid called arginine is available for spermidine synthesis. When arginase is blocked, less spermidine is synthesised, again making the bacteria more susceptible to oxidative stress. DFMO is, therefore, a promising candidate for treating salmonellosis, the researchers say. In future studies, they seek to pinpoint other players that might be involved in controlling spermidine synthesis.    

REFERENCE:  
Nair AV, Singh A, Rajmani RS, Chakravortty D, Salmonella Typhimurium employs spermidine to exert protection against ROS-mediated cytotoxicity and rewires host polyamine metabolism to ameliorate its survival in macrophages, Redox Biology (2024).  
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2213231724001277
  
CONTACT:
Dipshikha Chakravortty   
Professor  
Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB)  
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)  
Email: dipa@iisc.ac.in  
Phone: 080-2293 2842  
Lab website: https://mcbl.iisc.ac.in/dclab/  

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS:  
a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release. 
b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in.   
Attendee panel closed

4^th May 2022

– Mohammed Asheruddin

Soft wearable glove for stroke rehabilitation (Photo: Mesoscopic Lab, Department of Physics, IISc)

Stroke is India’s third leading cause of death and the sixth leading cause of disability. Physiotherapy is one of the few treatments available for rehabilitating stroke victims and patients with physical injuries. However, physiotherapy can take days to months depending on the severity of the disability, making it challenging for patients as well as their attendants.

To help such patients, researchers in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a soft, wearable device that exploits the fundamental properties of light to sense a patient’s limb or finger movements. The customisable, 3D printed gloves can be remotely controlled, opening up the possibility of teleconsultation by physiotherapists.   

“We wanted to develop something affordable, and available to a person at all times at their convenience. The product should be easy to use and must provide feedback,” says Aveek Bid, Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, whose team has developed the device.

Bid explains that quantifiable feedback – for example, the units of pressure applied while squeezing a ball or the degree of bending of a leg with a knee injury – is crucial for doctors to monitor the patient, even remotely. Such feedback can also motivate patients to perform better in every consecutive session.   

Another challenge is that physiotherapy often requires daily hospital visits. Home visits by professionals or sophisticated devices to monitor patients remotely, although ideal, are not readily available and are expensive.   

To address these challenges, the team has developed a mechanism by which customisable wearables like hand gloves can be designed, 3D printed, and controlled remotely. “The idea behind the device is that you wear something like a glove, the physiotherapist controls the device from a remote location through the internet, and makes your hands and fingers move,” describes Bid.  The device can sense various hand and finger movements, and precisely detect parameters like pressure, bending angle and shape.

The technology that drives the device is based on the fundamental properties of light: refraction and reflection. A light source is placed at one end of a transparent rubbery material, and the other end has a light detector. Any movement in the finger or arm of the patient causes the flexible material to deform. The deformation alters the path of light, and thereby its properties. The device translates this change in light properties to a quantifiable unit. Since light travels across the entire length of the device, movement along any part of the patient’s finger or arm can be accurately measured.

Visual schematic of a soft wearable glove for remotely monitoring stroke rehatbilitation (Image: Mesoscopic Lab, Department of Physics, IISc)

The device is highly sensitive – enough to respond to the touch of a butterfly, says team member Abhijit Chandra Roy, DST-Inspire Faculty at the Department of Physics and the brains behind the project. In addition, while existing devices can only detect the bending of a finger, the new device can even measure the degree of bending at every joint of the finger, he explains.   

For their device, the researchers used a silicon-based polymer material that is transparent (facilitating manipulation of light), soft (for comfort and repeated use), and most importantly, 3D printed; it can therefore be customised to fit each patient’s arm and fingers. The device can also capture and store data, and transmit it over the internet, facilitating remote monitoring by clinicians or physiotherapists.

The researchers say that the device has been tested for stability for over 10 months, and no loss of sensitivity or accuracy was found. Bid adds that the device has been entirely designed and manufactured in India, and is expected to cost less than Rs 1,000. A patent has been filed for the device and the researchers hope to launch it in the market soon. The approach can also be extended to applications like augmented reality and real-time monitoring of health parameters.

CONTACT:  

Aveek Bid 
Associate Professor 
Department of Physics 
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: aveek@iisc.ac.in 
Phone: +91-80-2293 3340 
http://www.physics.iisc.ac.in/~aveek_bid/

Abhijit Roy 
DST-Inspire Faculty  
Department of Physics 
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: abhijitroy@iisc.ac.in 
https://abhiphn09.wixsite.com/softbioelectrolab 

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: 

a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release. 

b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in. 

16^th May 2022

– Ranjini Raghunath

Nano-sized robots manipulated using a magnetic field can help kill bacteria deep inside dentinal tubules, and boost the success of root canal treatments, a new study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and IISc-incubated startup, Theranautilus, shows.

Root canal treatments are routinely carried out to treat tooth infections in millions of patients. The procedure involves removing the infected soft tissue inside the tooth, called the pulp, and flushing the tooth with antibiotics or chemicals to kill the bacteria that cause the infection. But many times, the treatment fails to completely remove all the bacteria – especially antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as Enterococcus faecalis – which remain hidden inside microscopic canals in the tooth called dentinal tubules.

“The dentinal tubules are very small, and bacteria reside deep in the tissue. Current techniques are not efficient enough to go all the way inside and kill the bacteria,” explains Shanmukh Srinivas, Research Associate at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), IISc, and co-founder of Theranautilus.

In the study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, the researchers designed helical nanobots made of silicon dioxide coated with iron, which can be controlled using a device that generates a low intensity magnetic field. These nanobots were then injected into extracted tooth samples and their movement was tracked using a microscope.

By tweaking the frequency of the magnetic field, the researchers were able to make the nanobots move at will, and penetrate deep inside the dentinal tubules. “We have also established that we can retrieve them … we can pull them back out of the patient’s teeth,” says Srinivas.

Crucially, the team was able to manipulate the magnetic field to make the surface of the nanobots generate heat, which can kill the bacteria nearby. “No other technology in the market can do this right now,” says Debayan Dasgupta, Research Associate at CeNSE, and another co-founder of Theranautilus.

Left: Nanobots entering a dentinal tubule. Centre top and bottom: Schematic representation and electron microscope image of nanobot moving through dentinal tubule to reach bacterial colony. Right: How locally induced heat from nanobot can kill bacteria. Live bacteria are green and dead bacteria are red. Bottom right shows band where targeted treatment has been done in human teeth (Image: Theranautilus) 

Previously, scientists have used ultrasound or laser pulses to create shockwaves in the fluid used to flush out bacteria and tissue debris, in order to improve the efficiency of root canal treatment. But these pulses can only penetrate up to a distance of 800 micrometers, and their energy dissipates fast. The nanobots were able to penetrate much further – up to 2,000 micrometers. Using heat to kill the bacteria also provides a safer alternative to harsh chemicals or antibiotics, the researchers say.

Theranautilus was spun out of several years of work on magnetically-controlled nanoparticles carried out in the lab of Ambarish Ghosh, Professor at CeNSE. His group, along with collaborators, has previously shown that such nanoparticles can trap and move objects using light, swim through blood and inside living cells, and stick strongly to cancer cells. “These studies have shown that they are safe to use in biological tissues,” says Dasgupta.

The team has tested the dental nanobots in mice models and found them to be safe and effective. They are also working on developing a new kind of medical device that can easily fit inside the mouth, and allow the dentist to inject and manipulate the nanobots inside the teeth during root canal treatment.

“We are very close to deploying this technology in a clinical setting, which was considered futuristic even three years ago,” says Ghosh. “It is a joy to see how a simple scientific curiosity is shaping into a medical intervention that can impact millions of people in India alone.”

REFERENCE:

Dasgupta D, Peddi S, Saini DK, Ghosh A, Mobile Nanobots for Prevention of Root Canal Treatment Failure, Advanced Healthcare Materials (2022).

https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202200232

CONTACT:

Ambarish Ghosh
Professor, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE)
Co-founder, Theranautilus
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: ambarish@iisc.ac.in

Shamukh Srinivas
Co-founder and CEO, Theranautilus
Research Associate, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE)
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: shanmukhs@iisc.ac.in

Debayan Dasgupta
Co-founder, Theranautilus
Research Associate, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE)
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: debayan@iisc.ac.in

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: 

a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release.
b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in.

27^th May 2022

– Rohith KMS

In October 2017, tech giant Yahoo! disclosed a data breach that had leaked sensitive information of over 3 billion user accounts, exposing them to identity theft. The company had to force all affected users to change passwords and re-encrypt their credentials. In recent years, there have been several instances of such security breaches that have left users vulnerable.

“Almost everything we do on the internet is encrypted for security. The strength of this encryption depends on the quality of random number generation,” says Nithin Abraham, a PhD student at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Abraham is a part of a team led by Kausik Majumdar, Associate Professor at ECE, which has developed a record-breaking true random number generator (TRNG), which can improve data encryption and provide improved security for sensitive digital data such as credit card details, passwords and other personal information. The study describing this device has been published in the journal ACS Nano.

Encrypted information can be decoded only by authorised users who have access to a cryptographic “key”. But the key needs to be unpredictable and, therefore, randomly generated to resist hacking. Cryptographic keys are typically generated in computers using pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs), which rely on mathematical formulae or pre-programmed tables to produce numbers that appear random but are not. In contrast, a TRNG extracts random numbers from inherently random physical processes, making it more secure.

In IISc’s breakthrough TRNG device, random numbers are generated using the random motion of electrons. It consists of an artificial electron trap constructed by stacking atomically-thin layers of materials like black phosphorus and graphene. The current measured from the device increases when an electron is trapped, and decreases when it is released. Since electrons move in and out of the trap in a random manner, the measured current also changes randomly. The timing of this change determines the generated random number. “You cannot predict exactly at what time the electron is going to enter the trap. So, there is an inherent randomness that is embedded in this process,” explains Majumdar.

The image of the fabricated electronic chip that generates the random number. The chip is loaded into the measurement setup, where the randomness of the electron trapping/de-trapping is converted into binary outputs (Credit: Nithin Abraham)

The performance of the device on the standard tests for cryptographic applications designed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has exceeded Majumdar’s own expectations. “When the idea first struck me, I knew it would be a good random number generator, but I didn’t expect it to have a record-high min-entropy,” he says.

Min-entropy is a parameter used to measure the performance of TRNGs. Its value ranges from 0 (completely predictable) to 1 (completely random). The device from Majumdar’s lab showed a record-high min-entropy of 0.98, a significant improvement over previously reported values, which were around 0.89. “Ours is by far the highest reported min-entropy among TRNGs,” says Abraham.

The team’s electronic TRNG is also more compact than its clunkier counterparts that are based on optical phenomena, says Abraham. “Since our device is purely electronic, millions of such devices can be created on a single chip,” adds Majumdar. He and his group plan to improve the device by making it faster and developing a new fabrication process that would enable the mass production of these chips.

REFERENCE: 

Abraham N, Watanabe K, Taniguchi T, Majumdar K, A High-Quality Entropy Source Using van der Waals Heterojunction for True Random Number Generation, ACS Nano (2022)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.1c11084 

CONTACT: 

Kausik Majumdar
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Phone: +91-80-2293-2742
Email: kausikm@iisc.ac.in

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS:

a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release. 
b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in. 

01 May 2023

A multi-institutional study on dengue led by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) shows how the virus causing the disease has evolved dramatically over the last few decades in the Indian subcontinent.

Cases of dengue – a mosquito-borne viral disease – have steadily increased in the last 50 years, predominantly in the South-East Asian counties. And yet, there are no approved vaccines against dengue in India, although some vaccines have been developed in other countries.

“We were trying to understand how different the Indian variants are, and we found that they are very different from the original strains used to develop the vaccines,” says Rahul Roy, Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering (CE), IISc, and corresponding author of the study published in PLoS Pathogens. He and collaborators examined all available (408) genetic sequences of Indian dengue strains from infected patients collected between the years 1956 and 2018 by others as well as the team themselves.

Dengue virus evolution in India (Image: Suraj Jagtap)

There are four broad categories – serotypes – of the dengue virus (Dengue 1, 2, 3 and 4). Using computational analysis, the team examined how much each of these serotypes deviated from their ancestral sequence, from each other, and from other global sequences. “We found that the sequences are changing in a very complex fashion,” says Roy.

Until 2012, the dominant strains in India were Dengue 1 and 3. But in recent years, Dengue 2 has become more dominant across the country, while Dengue 4 – once considered the least infectious – is now making a niche for itself in South India, the researchers found. The team sought to investigate what factors decide which strain is the dominant one at any given time. One possible factor could be Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), says Suraj Jagtap, PhD student at CE and first author of the study.

Jagtap explains that sometimes, people might be infected first with one serotype and then develop a secondary infection with a different serotype, leading to more severe symptoms. Scientists believe that if the second serotype is similar to the first, the antibodies in the host’s blood generated after the first infection bind to the new serotype and bind to immune cells called macrophages. This proximity allows the newcomer to infect macrophages, making the infection more severe. “We knew that ADE enhances severity, [but] we wanted to know if that can also change the evolution of dengue virus,” Jagtap adds.

At any given time, several strains of each serotype exist in the viral population. The antibodies generated in the human body after a primary infection provide complete protection from all serotypes for about 2-3 years. Over time, the antibody levels begin to drop, and cross-serotype protection is lost. The researchers propose that if the body is infected around this time by a similar – not identical – viral strain, then ADE kicks in, giving a huge advantage to this new strain, causing it to become the dominant strain in the population. Such an advantage lasts for a few more years, after which the antibody levels become too low to make a difference. “This is what is new about this paper,” says Roy. “Nobody has shown such interdependence between the dengue virus and the immunity of the human population before.” This is probably why the recent Dengue 4 strains, which supplanted the Dengue 1 and 3 strains, were more similar to the latter than their own ancestral Dengue 4 strains, the researchers believe.

Such insights are possible only from studying the disease in countries like India with genomic surveillance, explains Roy, because the infection rates here have been historically high, and a huge population carries antibodies from a previous infection.

REFERENCE:

Jagtap S, Pattabiraman C, Sankaradoss A, Krishna S, Roy R, Evolutionary dynamics of dengue virus in India, PLoS Pathogens (2023).
The work was supported by a philanthropic grant from Narayana Murthy, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Infosys Limited, and funding from the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance.

CONTACT:

Rahul Roy
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering (CE)
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: rahulroy@iisc.ac.in
Phone: 080-2293 3115
Lab website: https://nanobiology.nanobiophotonics.org/

Suraj Jagtap
PhD student
Department of Chemical Engineering (CE)
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: jsuraj@iisc.ac.in

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS:

a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release.

b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in.

3 May 2023

The UK and India are set to become first movers in the transition to Net Zero transport systems, thanks to a pioneering innovation partnership, led by Energy Systems Catapult.

Innovating for Transport and Energy Systems (ITES) is a unique collaboration to develop greener, quicker and more affordable ways for people and goods to move around – in India, the UK, and beyond.

Backed by governments in both the UK and India, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and delivered in partnership with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the initiative will for the first time bring together innovators, industry heavyweights, researchers, policymakers and investors from both countries to target the transport system’s toughest decarbonisation challenges, such as developing an electric vehicle-ready infrastructure.

The initiative is one of the first to be announced following a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by UK and India Science Ministers last Wednesday, 26 April, in Westminster, to boost science and innovation, and deliver economic growth across the two countries.

ITES will offer a ‘soft-landing’ for UK SMEs interested in the Indian market, and opportunities for SMEs and start-ups in India, helping innovators to safely develop, test and export solutions that help decarbonise transport, thanks to low-risk, high-impact pilots with trusted partners. The collaboration will also help SMEs tackle scalability with go-to-market support and access to potential clients, funders and investment.

Adopting a perspective across the whole transport and energy system, ITES will consider the multiple solutions needed to deliver cleaner seas, skies, roads and railways. Cutting-edge pilots and research programmes in India and the UK will test technologies and explore pathways for sustainable and clean transport – such as electric and hydrogen solutions – that are reliable, affordable and acceptable to businesses and consumers, as well as ensuring an infrastructure and energy generation system that can meet demand.

ITES aims to attract public, private and third sector partners and sponsors to ensure activities are market-led and solve practical problems, such as zero-emission fleets and last-mile delivery, and innovative charging technologies. By combining resources, the programme will make it more cost-effective for the UK and India to develop world-first pilot projects and Net Zero solutions.

Guy Newey, Chief Executive at Energy Systems Catapult, said: “Decarbonising transport is one of the greatest challenges we face. This is not a hurdle we can overcome alone. By linking innovators, researchers, and investors together in the UK and India we can unlock financial investments, accelerate the pace of decarbonisation, and flex our collective low-carbon muscle.

“The partnership underlines how innovation from SMEs will be at the heart of the Net Zero transition and affords them an opportunity to collaborate and trial their solutions in the world’s fifth biggest economy – turbocharging decarbonisation efforts and unleashing economic potential.”

The initiative will be steered by in-country partner, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Prof Ashish Verma, Convenor, IISc Sustainable Transportation (IST) Lab, said, “India is currently passing through an interesting phase of economic growth and infrastructure development in many sectors including transport, which provides a great opportunity for the country to leapfrog to a sustainable and Net Zero future.

“We are committed to exploring disruptive, cutting-edge and collaborative solutions. Complementing these efforts, ITES, which is anchored within the IST lab, will harness the UK and India’s rich reputation for R&D and the strength of our business sectors to pioneer test beds that unlock better data, clearer decision-making and bolder collective action from industry and leaders in the transport and energy sector.”

ITES will form part of the new UK-India Net Zero Innovation Virtual Centre, a key coalition forged as part of the Memorandum of Understanding signed last week, to help maximise cooperation on Net Zero action.

Backed by the UK Government, the Centre will be facilitated by the UK Science and Innovation Network in India, hosting programmes such as the Hydrogen Valley and Industrial Decarbonisation Living Lab to help decarbonise manufacturing and – through the ITES initiative – transport systems.

The launch of ITES builds on the success of former initiatives to boost innovation between the UK and India, such as the Innovating for Clean Air (IfCA) programme. Led by Energy Systems Catapult, with partners including the Indian Institute of Science, the programme enabled the adoption of clean EV technologies and services by proving solutions across real-life testbeds in India.

Sarah Fallon, Regional Director (India, Middle East), Science, Innovation and Tech, British High Commission, New Delhi said: “Our ambition is that ITES will be a long-term, established base for UK-India superpower partnerships and programmes that shape the future of Net Zero transport systems, and that can be expanded to other sectors over time.

“We are confident that this initiative will help accelerate the development of innovative solutions for greener transport systems in India and overseas, and bring us closer to our shared goal of Net Zero emissions – an ambition that can only be realised with international collaboration.”

London-based business GreenEnco is among the UK innovators that has expanded its offering in India after demonstrating its EV charging station solution, and gaining support to develop a mobile app as part of the project. The company is now applying its expertise to help deliver faster electric vehicle charging solutions in India, while also supporting local industry.

GreenEnco Chief Executive Officer Dr Jyotirmoy Roy said: “Through international programmes such as IfCA, ESC and their partners have provided innovative businesses like ours with the safe springboard we need to develop overseas, opening doors in India to help us collaborate and commercialise across borders. We have now committed with our integrated green energy solution to help develop a fast EV charging infrastructure in India.

“We’re delighted that our innovative solution will not only make an environmental impact to help decarbonise the transport sector, but – with our locally-procured system components – we are also supporting the development of a sustainable socio-economical ecosystem in India.”

About Energy Systems Catapult

Energy Systems Catapult was set up to accelerate the transformation of the UK’s energy system to reach Net Zero and ensure UK businesses and consumers capture the opportunities of clean growth. The Catapult is an independent, not-for-profit centre of excellence that bridges the gap between industry, government, academia and research. We take a whole systems view of the energy sector, helping us to identify and address innovation priorities and market barriers, in order to decarbonise the energy system at the lowest cost.

About the Indian Institute of Science (IISc)

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was established in 1909 by a visionary partnership between the industrialist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the Mysore royal family and the Government of India. Over the last 113 years, IISc has become India’s premier institute for advanced scientific and technological research and education. Its mandate is “to provide for advanced instruction and to conduct original investigations in all branches of knowledge as are likely to promote the material and industrial welfare of India.” In 2018, IISc was selected as an Institution of Eminence (IoE) by the Government of India, and it consistently figures among the top Indian institutions in world university rankings.

CONTACT:

Stuart Brennan, Head of Communications and Marketing
Email: stuart.brennan@es.catapult.org.uk
http://es.catapult.org.uk/

IISc Office of Communications
Email: news@iisc.ac.in

16 May 2023

During 9-18 May 2023, the Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru are hosting the meeting of ITU-T Study Group 9 (SG-9) on “Broadband Cable and Television/Audiovisual content transmission and integrated broadband cable networks” at the IISc campus.

This is the first physical meeting of the SG-9 after the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also the first time that the SG9 meeting is being hosted by India. The event was attended by delegates and representatives from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Congo, Egypt, France, Gambia, Germany, India, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Syria, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Ukraine, and other countries. In addition, representatives of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN Organisation, and many other experts attended the meeting.

ITU is the oldest UN agency, founded in 1865, to facilitate international connectivity in communications networks. ITU allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strives to improve access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to underserved communities worldwide. The Study Group 9 at ITU is responsible for telecommunication systems for primary and secondary distribution of audiovisual content, including accessibility services and emerging interactive media.

The ITU SG9 meeting was held at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, IISc. During the inaugural session on 9 May 2023, Mr Avinash Agarwal, DDG(C&B) TEC; Dr Satoshi Miyaji, Chairman of ITU-T SG9; Prof Rajesh Sundaresan, Dean of the Division of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Sciences at IISc; Prof Pradipta Biswas, Vice-Chair of ITU-T SG9, and the TSB team from ITU Geneva were present.

The SG9 meeting organised sessions to discuss the 11 questions assigned by the ITU Membership at the previous World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly. The SG9 looks at different aspects of transmission, distribution, and rendering of cable and broadband TV, after considering multiple contributions submitted by ITU Members, of which a large part has come from India and Indian stakeholders, including a draft recommendation on a Common User Profile, which is a work item led by IISc. On Wednesday, 10 May 2023, a virtual meeting of IRG-AVA, an ITU group trying to improve accessibility of audio-visual media by coordinating inputs from representatives of ITU-D, ITU-R and ITU-T Sectors, was held.

The Study Group meeting also comprised the ITU Workshop on The Future of Television for South Asia, Arab and Africa Regions, which was held on 11 May 2023, covering regulatory and policy frameworks, emerging and convergent ICT infrastructures and services, as well as user interfaces and human factors. The workshop was held in hybrid mode and was attended by more than 200 participants from over 50 different countries. The speakers included eminent experts such as Premjit Lal​, Deputy Director General (International Relations), Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, India​; Prof Rajesh Sundaresan, Dr Satoshi Miyaji, and Mr Seizo Onoe​, Director, Telecommunication Standarisation Bureau, ITU. The event was accompanied by demos from various industries and research labs including C-DOT, Saankhya Labs, ITI, Qualcomm, Exalto, and Doordarshan as well as three IISc Labs – Centre for Networked Intelligence, 5G test bed, and I3D Labs.

Mr Seizo Oneo, TSB Director, speaking about the event, said, “I thank India’s Ministry of Communications and the Indian Institute of Science for their hard work in arranging the workshop, as well as your hospitality to ITU-T Study Group 9 as the hosts. At the workshop, while the future technologies of digital broadcasting were discussed, it was also highlighted that many countries are still facing challenges in transitioning from analog to digital broadcasting. I hope that the ITU workshop will serve as a platform for sharing best practices and help bridge the gap.”

RELATED LINKS:

ITU Future of TV: ITU Workshop on “The Future of Television for South Asia, Arab and Africa Regions”

ITU SG 9: ITU-T SG9: Broadband cable and TV

ITU: ITU: Committed to connecting the world

CONTACT:

Office of Communications, IISc | news@iisc.ac.in

26 May 2023

– Akash Kalita

Like thieves that constantly look for ways to evade capture, Salmonella enterica, a disease-causing bacterium, uses various tactics to escape the human body’s defence mechanisms. In a new study, researchers from the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB), IISc, highlight two such strategies that the bacterium uses to protect itself, both driven by the same protein.

When Salmonella enters the human body, each bacterial cell resides within a bubble-like structure known as Salmonella-containing vacuole (SCV). In response to the bacterial infection, the immune cells in our body produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), along with pathways triggered to break down these SCVs and fuse them with cellular bodies called lysosomes or autophagosomes, which destroy the bacteria. However, these bacteria have developed robust mechanisms to maintain vacuolar integrity, which is crucial for their survival. For example, when a bacterial cell divides, the vacuole surrounding it also divides, enabling every new bacterial cell to be ensconced in a vacuole. This also ensures that more vacuoles are present than the number of lysosomes which can digest them.

In the study published in Microbes and Infection, the IISc team deduced that a critical protein produced by Salmonella, known as SopB, prevents both the fusion of SCV with lysosomes as well as the production of lysosomes, in a two-pronged approach to protect the bacterium. “[This] gives the upper hand to bacteria to survive inside macrophages or other host cells,” explains Ritika Chatterjee, former PhD student in MCB and first author of the study. The experiments were carried out on immune cell lines and immune cells extracted from mice models.

Image: Ritika Chatterjee

SopB acts as a phosphatase – it aids in removing phosphate groups from phosphoinositide, a type of membrane lipid. SopB helps Salmonella change the dynamics of the vacuole – specifically it alters the type of inositol phosphates in the vacuole membrane – which prevents the vacuole’s fusion with lysosomes.

A previous study from the same team had reported that the number of lysosomes produced by the host cells decreases upon infection with Salmonella. The researchers also found that mutant bacteria that were unable to produce SopB were also unable to reduce host lysosome numbers. Therefore, they decided to look more closely at the role that SopB was playing in the production of lysosomes, using advanced imaging techniques.

What they found was that SopB prevents the translocation of a critical molecule called Transcription Factor EB (TFEB) from the cytoplasm of the host cell into the nucleus. This translocation is vital because TFEB acts as a master regulator of lysosome production.

“This is the first time we deciphered that SopB can work in a dual manner – it changes the phosphoinositide dynamics of SCV and affects TFEB’s translocation into the nucleus. While other groups have already reported the function of SopB in mediating invasion in epithelial cells, the novelty of our study lies in identification of the function of SopB in inhibiting the vacuolar fusion with existing autophagosomes/lysosomes, and the second mechanism, which provides Salmonella with a survival advantage by increasing the ratio of SCV to lysosomes,” says Dipshikha Chakravortty, Professor at MCB and corresponding author of the study.

The researchers suggest that using small molecule inhibitors against SopB or activators of TFEB can help counter Salmonella infection.

In subsequent studies, the team plans to explore the role of another host protein called Syntaxin-17 whose levels also reduce during Salmonella infection. “How do the SCVs reduce the levels of Syntaxin-17? Do they exchange it with some other molecules, or do the bacteria degrade it? We [plan to] look into it next,” says Chakravortty.

REFERENCE:

Chatterjee R, Chaudhuri D, Gangi Setty SR, Chakravortty D, Deceiving the big eaters: Salmonella Typhimurium SopB subverts host cell xenophagy in macrophages via dual mechanisms, Microbes and Infection (2023).

CONTACT:

Dipshikha Chakravortty
Professor
Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB)
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: dipa@iisc.ac.in
Phone: 080-2293 2842
Lab website: https://mcbl.iisc.ac.in/dclab/

Ritika Chatterjee
Former PhD student
Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB)
Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
Email: ritikac@iisc.ac.in

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS:

a) If any of the text in this release is reproduced verbatim, please credit the IISc press release.
b) For any queries about IISc press releases, please write to news@iisc.ac.in or pro@iisc.ac.in.