The scientific community must find the right balance between pure research and applied science, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said. He was delivering the inaugural address at the international symposium on ‘Nitric Oxide’ at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB).
Chandy said that science must lead to better understanding of the world around us and at the same time result in innovations that improve the lives of people. The Chief Minister also honoured the chief guest at the ceremony, Nobel laureate Dr Ferid Murad, with a traditional Kerala shawl and a memento.
The international conference on ‘’Legacy of Nitric Oxide Discovery: Impact on Disease Biology’’ is being hosted by RGCB in partnership with the Srinivasa Ramanujan Institute for Basic Sciences (SRIBS), a capacity building initiative of the Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment (KSCSTE).
Dr Ferid Murad, who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for discovery of the signaling role of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system, delivered the keynote address and a public lecture at the symposium in the evening.
Murad is currently a professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, George Washington University, USA.
KSCSTE executive vice-president V N Rajasekharan Pillai said that since the surprising discovery of the biological functions of nitric oxide in the 1980s, innumerable papers have been published on the multifarious roles of the gaseous molecule in the human body. Jon Lundberg from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute opened the session in the morning with a plenary lecture with reference to studies that indicate that nitrite and nitrate may have therapeutic potential in diseases such as myocardial infarction, stroke, hypertension, renal failure and gastric ulcers.
Other speakers included Madhu Khullar (PGIMER, Chandigarh), Amrita Ahluwalia (University of London, UK)¸ David A Wink, (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda Maryland, USA), Vasily A Yakovlev, (Virginia Commonwealth University,USA), Massimo Delledonne (University of Verona, Italy), Pradeep Kachroo (University of Kentucky, USA), Srinivas Gopala (SCTIMST, Trivandrum), E V Soniya (RGCB) and Sanjay Ghosh (University of Calcutta).