June 3, 2010
School of Engineering, Coimbatore
Dr. Shantikumar Nair, Director of Amrita Centre for Nanosciences, was recently in Russia as part of a high-level Indian delegation on nanotechnology.
Led by Dr. G. Sundararajan, Director of ARCI (International Advanced Research Center), Hyderabad, the team visited several Russian institutions engaged in nanotechnology research.
“The visit gave us an opportunity to learn about nanotechnology-related work currently ongoing in Russia,” stated Dr. Nair.
As Director of India’s foremost nanotechnology center in the biomedical area, Dr. Nair represented Biomedical Nanotechnology, while others on the team spoke for Nanomaterials, Nanoelectronics and Nanofabrication.
The team visited the Institute of Radio Engineering in Moscow, Kurchatov Institute that promotes academic research in nanotechnology and Trekpor Company that specializes in making porous membranes for biomedical applications.
The team also visited RUSNANO – a company established with Russian Government funding to promote rapid translation of research concepts into new products, especially biomedical products.
“On behalf of the delegation, we formally invited a Russian team led by RUSNANO to visit India,” stated Dr. Nair, “I believe RUSNANO may visit our Amrita Centre for Nanosciences during their visit to India.”
NT-MDT is a premier manufacturer of advanced high resolution microscopes for nano-characterization, such as Scanning Tunneling Microscope and Confocal Raman Microscope and the team visited their premises as well.
“RUSNANO and NT-MDT are finalizing an MOU with Amrita to jointly develop nanotechnology products,” informed Dr. Nair.
“Our Center has gained world-wide recognition for developing new nano-materials for cancer diagnosis and therapy. We hope that these tie-ups will accelerate our research momentum and help make nanotechnology applications commercially viable.”
