Dec 30, 2009
Center for Nanosciences, Kochi
 

Amrita’s Dr. R. Jayakumar was recently in Malaysia for an invited talk titled Novel Natural Biopolymeric Nanomaterials in Medicine.
 

As Associate Professor at the Amrita Center for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine, Dr. Jayakumar conducts research on the development of biodegradable polymeric nanomaterials, nanofibers, gels, scaffolds and membranes for tissue engineering and drug delivery and wound dressing applications.
 

Accordingly, he was invited to speak at the International Conference on Nanotechnology — Research and Commercialization, in Malaysia during December 14-17, 2009. Emerging Nanotechnology Enabling Scientific Discoveries and Innovations for Wealth Creation was the theme of this conference organized by the Advanced Materials Research Center (AMREC) and SIRIM BERHAD.
 

Chitin and its derivative chitosan, are naturally occurring biopolymers obtained from crab shells. Dr. Jayakumar’s talk focused on specific biomedical applications including development of carboxymethyl chitin nanoparticles for cancer drug delivery and novel carboxymethyl chitosan/ZnS:Mn and mannosylated chitosan/ZnS:Mn nanoparticles for oral cancer targeting.
 

“Chitin and chitosan can be easily processed in the form of nanoparticles, nano fibers, membranes and scaffolds that are suitable for a variety of applications including drug delivery, cancer targeting, wound dressing and tissue engineering,” stated Dr. Jayakumar. “Nanomaterials and nanocomposites developed in our laboratory were assessed for their cytocompatibility, antibacterial activity and cell adhesion studies.”
 

Biomedical applications under study also included the preparation of novel chitin/nanosilver composite scaffold and chitosan hydrogel/nano ZnO composite membranes for wound dressing and bioactive electrospun carboxymethyl chitin/poly(vinyl alcohol) nanofibers for bone tissue engineering applications. At the conference, Dr. Jayakumar chaired the Nanotechnology Session on December 15.
 

Earlier in September 2009, Dr. Jayakumar was invited for a talk at the 11th International Conference on Chitin and Chitosan at Taipei. Just as in the Malaysian Conference, key delegates here included experts from Japan, Singapore, UK, Germany, USA, Norway, Turkey and France. Here too, Dr. Jayakumar was asked to chair a Nanotechnology Session.
 

Amrita is proud that its research is being recognized at distinguished forums such as these.