Indian researchers were at the forefront of many scientific and technological advances this year. These spanned the entire scientific spectrum from astrophysics to microbiology and have practical applications to deal with pressing problems. Here are six key breakthroughs by Indian scientists in 2018.
India gets its own microprocessor
The year 2018 saw India launch its first microprocessor named ‘Shakti’. A research team from IIT Madras, in collaboration with ISRO’s Semiconductor Laboratory, based the microprocessor on open source languages like ‘RISC V’ and ‘Bluespec’, which make the chip adaptable into various devices such as mobile phones, surveillance cameras and other wireless networking systems.
The lead scientist, Prof V Kamakoti, said that the team wanted to address two questions. "All the microprocessors in commercial commodities are imported, leading to a lot of foreign currency spent. How can we stop importing? Also, we really don’t know what is inside the microprocessors we get. Is there a guarantee that it won’t do what we don’t want it to do, in terms of security? We wanted to find out," he said.
The invention of ‘Shakti’ is India’s first step towards stopping dependence on imported microchips. “We are already in talks with the Department of Atomic Energy, and we are also looking for buyers to introduce it into commercial products,” Dr Kamakoti said.
Made-in-India isotopes to diagnose tumours
In India, a majority of isotopes used in medicine are imported. Isotopes which help in cancer diagnosis and therapy can now be produced in India, with the help of the cyclotron ‘Cyclone 30’.
‘Cyclone 30’ was created by the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata, and is the country’s largest cyclotron facility. It has been used to produce Fluorine-18 isotopes, which accurately diagnose various tumours including pancreatic cancer and lung cancer. Radioisotopes in a cyclotron are produced by accelerating particles using variable electric current.
The team is also looking to produce isotopes of germanium (for breast cancer diagnosis), palladium (for prostate cancer) and iodine (for diagnosis and therapy for thyroid cancer).
Pink signal for arsenic-tainted water
The water resources ministry revealed during the 2017 parliament winter session that 65% of the population of Assam, 60% of Bihar’s population, and 44% of West Bengal’s population consume arsenic-contaminated water, which leads to cancer and organ failure.
Scientists at IISER Kolkata have found a simple way to remove the arsenic from water. Collaborating with a company called ‘ADO Additives’, Dr Raja Shanmugam and his research group produced a fluoro-polymer strip that turns pink when it touches water containing even 0.02mg of arsenic. The water is then passed through a filter containing a polymer called ‘ADOSAFE-AS’, which traps the arsenic.
The company has made the purification kit available for affordable purchase.
Bacteria roped in to purify fossil fuels
The study of microbiology has shown its potential in many other industries apart from the medical field, with microbes getting integrated into many production processes.
A publication in the PLOS ONE journal by CSIR IMMT (Bhubaneshwar) describes how four strains of Rhodococcus taken from the Microbial Type Culture Collection (a national collection of microbes and genes) can be used in the purification of diesel.
These strains have a particular gene sequence called ‘dsz’ which helps in the process, leading to a specific and efficient desulphurisation (up to an efficiency of more than 99%). The authors say that employing this technology in the industry could lead to an “eco-friendly and energy economical process.”
Fastest supercomputer to predict rain or shine
In January this year, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, launched India’s fastest supercomputer Pratyush to forecast the weather and natural disasters. The computer delivers a speed of ‘6.8 petaflops’.
Pratyush has put India on the map of the world’s fastest supercomputers and is among the top 30 in the list of top 500 high-performance computers in the world.
So far, the Indian Meteorological Department was only able to make short range (3-4 days) or medium range (up to 10 days) weather forecasts. But with the advent of Pratyush, scientists can make seasonal forecasts (3-4 months). This will be particularly useful to make forecasts for agriculture.
Being the fourth supercomputer in the world to be used for meteorological purposes, it would also be able to accurately predict heavy rain, urban flooding, heatwaves, cyclones and tsunamis. Scientists have also planned to use it for climate change studies.
Exoplanet spotted 600 light years away
Discoveries in space are always fascinating! More and more planets from outside our solar system are now being discovered and studied. Abhijit Chakroborty and his team from the Physical Research Laboratory (Ahmedabad) published a paper this year about one such exoplanet that they discovered 600 light years away.
K2 236b looks like Neptune and has the mass of 27 Earths. Its surface temperature is 600 degrees C as it is very close to its star K2 236. The planet completes a year (one revolution) in 19.5 days.
The team used a spectrograph called ‘PARAS’, which splits the light reflected from the planet and studies it in detail. The spectrograph was integrated with the lab’s telescope at Gurushikhar Observatory in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.
Exoplanet discoveries are particularly important in astrosciences, as they give a lot of information about our own solar system.
Solving the cancer equation
There are many types of cancer cells in a tumour including ‘cancer stem cells’ that can cause relapse after treatment. The mathematical model developed by Dr Ram Rup Sarkar and his team from CSIR NCL (Pune) describes the interactions of the body's immune cells and these types of cancer cells.
Based on the calculations, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy can be tweaked to make the treatment effective. This would also reduce the painful side effects that are commonly experienced by cancer patients.
“It’s a very generic model which can be applicable to any type of cancer,” said Dr Ram, adding that they are also finding a way to translate their work into clinical trials.
While the team continues studies to understand the mechanisms of various types of cancer, they are also part of another project, which proposes an artificial intelligence machine learning to predict the chances of occurrence of cancer for anyone.
So imagine a machine that can tell you whether you could get cancer in the future or not, based on your genes and the presence of certain proteins in your body!