EmTech India ’10 begins in City
The engineering of 21st century would involve disciplines such as physical sciences, life sciences, medicine and public health to solve micro and macro problems, said Subra Suresh, in the keynote address at the opening day of EmTech 2010 conference on Monday.
He said “we at MIT School of Engineering work on next generation technology which brings integration of biotech and engineering. Using these we can solve various issues like power, water and basic needs. We are conducting various experiments using virus for electricity.” He further said the marriage of engineering, physical sciences, life sciences, medicine and public health is the need of the hour.
MIT Professor Vannevar Bush, referred to the use of microfluidics to measure the ‘flowability’ of red blood cells and detect infected ones. Similarly, by combining engineering and cell biology it will be possible to detect cancer cells. Cancer treatment causes abnormal stiffness in red blood cells and this can now be measured by Atomic Force Microscopy, he said.
Affordable innovation
In a panel discussion, Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, said India should focus on affordable innovation.“Innovation is of two types. One is creating new products and the second is creating a business model and an ecosystem with proper planning,” she said.
For creating an ecosystem it is very important to have a collaboration between government, academia and industry, she added. Andreas Kirchner, German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, said “German research institutes are looking for potential in India. India with its success stories is a good power to associate with. Tie-ups are key to meet global challenges.”
