The future medicines will be from cells
Shameerpet: The future of medicine will be from cells but the shortage of manpower for research and development is a major cause of worry, said Dr Rakesh Mishra, director at CCMB on the concluding day of the International Congress of Cell Biology here on Wednesday.
There is a need to develop skills in cell biology as it would meet the future requirements as medicines would be extracted from one’s own body.
The requirement is less and is not expensive but trained manpower is a huge problem. CCMB is making all efforts to meet doctors at every forum to find ways and means to tackle this problem.
CCMB is concentrating on treatment of cancer by using cells and also diagnosing diseases in new born infants.
Another issue that came for discusion at the congress was on funding. While the governments in the West spend close to four per cent, in India it is 0.7 per cent. Researchers were told to build clinical collaborations and initiate entrepreneurial ventures founded on their discoveries. The ICCB-2018 featured several synergy sessions including a scientist-clinician meet, and a panel discussion on “Building a Biotech Start-up: Opportunities from Cell Biology”.
The concluding session of the congress focused on how the science policy of 21st century should be framed to facilitate a conducive environment for scientific research in the country, to enable advances in science and technology for national development. More than 1,100 students and researchers in cell biology from India and 30 different countries came together in Hyderabad for the International Congress for Cell Biology (ICCB 2018).
Director of CCMB Dr Rakesh Mishra, Asia Pacific organization of Cell Biology (APOCB) President & Director of National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore Dr.Satyajit Mayor, Indian Society of Cell Biology President Dr Jagat K Roy Professor at Benarus Hindu University (BHU) and Prof Shashidhara of IISER deliberated upon the science policy to be adopted by the government of India.