October 20, 2010
Centre for Nanosciences & Molecular Medicine
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, with support from the IUSSTF, recently started a joint initiative with Stanford University (California), Rice University (Houston), University of Texas (Houston) and University of Connecticut, Health Centre (Hartford) in the area of Cell-Targeted Diagnostics and Therapy using Nanomaterials.
The supporting body IUSSTF (Indo-US Science and Technology Forum) is an autonomous, non-profit society that promotes and catalyzes Indo-US bilateral collaborations in science, technology, engineering and biomedical research.
Dr. Shanti Nair, Dean (Research) at Amrita recently visited these universities in the US to kick-start the collaboration.
“The mobility of faculty and staff from Rice, Standford and UConn to Amrita and from Amrita to Rice, Stanford and UConn will start in Jan/Feb of next year,” he informed.
At Amrita, Dr. Nair also heads the Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine, wherein nearly 50 Ph.D. students are enrolled.
Some of these students will now have the opportunity to travel to and complete part of their research work in the US universities. Conversely all students will benefit from US scholars who choose to come to Amrita.
“There will be a large-scale knowledge transfer happening when this exchange program comes in to play,” emphasized Dr. Nair. “This will thus provide a great impetus to the research and academic programs at all these universities.”
During his tour, Dr. Nair met with the Provosts of the respective universities.
“On Amma’s Birthday, I was at the University of Connecticut Health Centre,” he shared. “After my presentation on Sept. 27, we celebrated with cutting a cake,” he recalled.
