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NEW DELHI, India, June 4, 2003 — Two of last year’s winners of the Intel Science Talent Search were Mandeep Virdi and Nina Bai, American students of Indian origin. Yet, in India, nanotechnology has yet to reach the schools.
This deficiency is not lost on government science advisers like Raghunath A. Mashelkar and V.K. Aatre, who are warning their country’s political leaders not to neglect the next technological revolution. The plea has not been completely ignored, especially by Murli Manohar Joshi, India’s minister for science and technology, who has a physics background and understands that India is a sleeping giant that is only slowly waking up to the challenges of small tech.
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“Having missed the semiconductor revolution, people like Dr. Aatre (scientific adviser to the Defense Ministry) are particular that India should not lose out on the next revolution,” said Alevoor Raghupathy Upadhya, program director for India’s $15 million National Program for Smart Materials.
The result is a multipronged strategy focused on a quick entry into the global nanotechnology R&D scene. It factors in India’s late start, its capital deficiency and lack of quality lab facilities, but builds on its strength — abundant intellectual property potential.
A three-way network among government labs, universities and industry is being quickly cobbled together. Collaboration within India, and with counterparts abroad, is being encouraged. Last year, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) sponsored two collaboration-scouting trips to the United States and Europe. Simultaneously, India has signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Union that allows for the sharing of equipment and information.
To compensate for lack of funds — some Asian neighbors spend $100 million to $200 million annually — the government is involving expatriate Indian scientists with its nanotechnology plan. Consequently, Professors V.K. Varadan of Penn State University, Ajay Malshe of the University of Arkansas and Shekhar Bhansali of the University of South Florida have been drawn into the plan to help Indian scientists and technology developers shorten their learning curve.
“They’ve decided to collaborate with institutions outside India on MEMS and nanotechnology to ensure that they do not have to reinvent the wheel,” Bhansali said. “This and the basic infrastructure will ensure that the learning curve is shorter. At the end of the day, technology is IP-driven and there’s a lot of IP in India. Tapping existing infrastructure all over the world is a smart way of doing things.”
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry have been approached to identify companies capable of developing and marketing the research produced by the country’s estimated 100 national labs.
Names like Tata Honeywell, Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Titan Industries are doing the rounds. Officials say that the government is so keen on giving a leg up to small tech applications that it has decided to make available the research being done at government labs, including the hush-hush Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). Such openness is previously unknown in India.
Experts like S. Sadagopan, director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, dismiss these efforts as, “too much talk without substance.” Professor K. Vijayamohanan of the National Chemical Laboratories, agreed. “There’s too much of duplication of work, lack of central monitoring, no complementary inter-institutional programs, improper allotment of funds … and lack of huge funding like the U.S. NNI (National Nanotechnology Initiative), necessary for breakthroughs.”
However, heightened awareness has drawn institutions like the Shanmuga Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy to nanotechnology. The university has been able to convince U.S.-based Veeco Instruments Inc. to co-sponsor a recent nanotechnology seminar. Such “quickening” of global interest could benefit India. Veeco ventured into China last year to set up the China Nanotechnology Center with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The concentrated emphasis on nanotechnology development is beginning to yield some results. A research group headed by Professor A. N. Maitra of the University of Delhi’s chemistry department, for instance, has developed 11 patentable technologies for improved drug delivery systems using nanoparticles. Four of these processes have been granted U.S. patents. In India, some of them have been recently transferred to industry.
One tech transfer deals with an improved drug delivery system to administer pacilitaxel, a drug used to treat ovarian and breast cancer. The process works around the complications associated with intravenous injections by permitting cancer patients to pop a pacilitaxel pill.
This technology has been snapped up by Dabur Research Foundation and is now undergoing trials.
Another technology transferred to industry deals with nanoparticle drug delivery for eye diseases. Traditionally, steroids have been used extensively in the treatment of ocular inflammatory disease and allergies. However, prolonged use of steroids has many side effects. The Delhi group’s process uses nanoparticles to encapsulate non-steroidal drugs. “This process improves the bioavailability of the drug on the surface of the cornea,” he said. The technology has been transferred to Chandigarh-based Panacea Biotech Ltd.