Director of the Nehru Planetarium N. Rathnasree passed away on Sunday, the Culture Ministry said on Tuesday.
In a statement on Twitter and Facebook, the Ministry, under which the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and planetarium function, said: “Extremely saddened to learn about the unfortunate demise of Dr. N. Rathnasree, Director of Nehru Planetarium under @_NMML_ passed away on Sunday
E-commerce firm Snapdeal on Monday launched a new platform which can be used to connect COVID-19 patients with potential plasma donors.
The platform, called ‘Sanjeevani’, is accessible via website as well as mobile application. Patients and donors can register themselves with their mobile numbers/email ids and provide relevant information like blood group, location, age and donor recovery date.
Sankar Ghosh, whose parental home is in EC Block, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
A US-based immunologist, with family in Salt Lake, has just been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious institution established under a charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.
Sankar, whose parental home is in EC Block, is a professor and head of the microbiology and immunology department of Columbia University. His research is on the immune system and has been critical in the understanding of and treatment of inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, colitis and dermatitis.
Bio-entrepreneur Dr Subhadra Dravida is inspired by Paulo Coelho.
Her favourite line is from The Alchemist “When you seek something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Says the scientist and owner of healthcare startup Transcell Oncologics,
“Since the news of the virus erupted in March 2020, I had been thinking on these lines. And in three months it happened. If everything goes well, our solution will actually get implemented in a month or two in India.”
The Universe did step in and Dravida is the new medical star whose breakthrough research on a novel stem cell treatment holds promise for Covid patients.
Hyderabad
Former Director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Dr Rakesh Mishra, said that 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) drug would do wonders in fighting against mild and severe Covid-19 cases.
This anti Covid-19 drug developed by Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a Defence Research and Development Organisation along with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, with the help of CCMB has been approved by the Drug Controller General of India.
Drugmaker Natco Pharma has received emergency use approval for Baricitinib tablets, 1 mg, 2 mg and 4 mg strengths, from Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) in India.
Baricitinib, in combination with Remdesivir, is used for treatment of COVID-19 positive patients, a release from Natco on the approval said.
Texas Instruments on Saturday announced setting up of 86 critical care beds in a modular ICU unit at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in Bengaluru.
Given as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, the ICU unit will come up at an investment of Rs 3 crore and will be ready in 3-4 weeks.
Tzar Labs, a molecular diagnostic company in coordination with the Mumbai-based Epigeneres Biotechnology, has claimed to have developed a breakthrough blood test for early prognosis/diagnosis of cancer.
Bengaluru-based Give India Foundation has come forward to donate 2,000 oxygen concentrators and the first batch of 80 concentrators was handed over to GKVK Covid Care Centre on Saturday.
Hospital coming up
A 250-bed COVID hospital will be set up in Yelahanka region immediately by Boeing company, manufacturers of Boeing jets, and the work has already been initiated. Boeing was also willing to set up another 250-bed COVID hospital in the same region.
An Indian expat at a UAE-based free zone firm has set aside producing Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) cylinders and shifted to manufacturing oxygen containers for India to help out the Covid patients in the country.
Speaking to Gulf News, Pushkar Khurana, Managing Director of the company EKC International FZE, said, “We are an Indian subsidiary and as soon as we came to know about the oxygen cylinder shortage in India, we had to rise to the call of our nation and serve the needs of our country.”
K.N. Kutty, sales manager of the company, a subsidiary of Everest Kanto Cylinder Limited in India, said the UAE unit has been producing CNG cylinders for Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) as well as industrial cylinders since 2002.