In a landmark development in philanthropic support for deep science in India, the Pratiksha Trust will give the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) here more than Rs 450 crore to accelerate fundamental and translational research on neurodegenerative diseases of the elderly population. The Pratiksha Trust is a charitable trust founded by philanthropists S Gopalakrishnan (Co-Founder, Infosys, and Chairperson, Axilor Ventures) and Sudha Gopalakrishnan. The Trust signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) – an autonomous Centre of IISc located on the Institute campus – on Wednesday. Under this MoU, the Trust has generously agreed to provide support to CBR in perpetuity, with an initial outlay to the tune of Rs 450.27 crore (approximately USD 55 million) over the next 10 years, for research, innovation and translation, Bengaluru-based IISc said. Earlier in 2014, the Pratiksha Trust had helped set up the CBR in the IISc campus. “The human brain is one of the world’s biggest mysteries, which is yet to be fully understood. By funding this Centre, with the help of IISc, we are working towards creating and sustaining a globally recognised, state-of-the-art research and innovation hub that will be at the cutting edge of research on the human brain,” said S Gopalakrishnan. “We are committed to supporting this Centre in its mission to reduce the pain, agony, and burden of an important part of our society: the elderly population. We wish the Centre all success and hope that it becomes the world’s leading centre for aging brain research by 2030”, he added. The substantial extension of support by the Pratiksha Trust through the current MoU will help scale up the research and innovation activities at the CBR, an IISc statement said. It will help identify new early biomarkers and molecular targets for novel drugs. The funding will help initiate and investigate the efficacy of evidence-based interventions (lifestyle-based as well as therapeutic), it said. The funding will also enable the Centre to proactively explore and achieve complete bench-to-bedside translation of the outcomes from the interdisciplinary research, IISc said. IISc Director Prof G Rangarajan, said India’s elderly population is expected to grow rapidly to a staggering 32 crore by 2050, leading to a corresponding increase in the burden of dementia and other aging-related neurodegenerative diseases. ”CBR is uniquely positioned to take on the challenge of tackling this impending healthcare and socioeconomic crisis”, he said. The Trust has been supporting the R&D activities and has helped create world-class infrastructure in CBR since its establishment in 2014. In addition, the Trust entirely funded the construction of a state-of-the-art building for CBR. The current MoU is an extension of this support for securing the future of CBR and strengthening its long-term studies on the aging brain, the statement said. In a parallel initiative, the Pratiksha Trust will be supporting several ambitious, high-risk-high-reward interdisciplinary extramural projects in aging brain research. Since 2014, CBR has dedicated itself to the deep intellectual pursuit of reducing the burden of neurodegenerative disorders (such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Vascular Dementia) among a key population – the elderly and their families, the statement said. A strong foundation was laid under the leadership of founder Director Prof Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath, during her tenure until the end of May 2022. CBR is now a lively hub of talented and dedicated molecular and cellular biologists, neuroscientists, clinician-researchers, computational geneticists, data scientists, and bright PhD students who are engaged in interdisciplinary translational research, it was stated. The CBR currently has 10 Principal Investigators supported by more than 20 Research Scientists, Post-Doctoral Fellows, and Medical Officers, and 22 PhD students. The Centre has initiated and completed four years of two unique longitudinal studies to track the aging brain over a 15 to 20-year period in individuals older than 45 years of age – one for a rural cohort (in Srinivasapura Taluk of Kolar District, Karnataka) with 10,000 volunteers, and the other for an urban cohort (in and around Bengaluru) with 1,000 volunteers. In the rural cohort, more than 5,400 volunteers have already been recruited and more than 6,600 multi-modal assessments have been completed (baseline as well as yearly follow-ups). The corresponding figures for the urban cohort (a project supported by the Tata Trusts) are more than 1,100 recruitments and more than 2,300 assessments. These cohort studies are providing a wealth of data, and preliminary analyses of the data collected so far are revealing important insights with implications for understanding the risk factors and protective factors for neurodegeneration. CBR is also leading a large-scale, nation-wide initiative involving 20 institutions called “Genome-India” (supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India), which aims to discover India-specific genetic basis for diseases through whole genome sequencing of 10,000 samples collected from across the length and breadth of India. The Trust has provided philanthropic support to many high-impact scientific initiatives for social good including the CBR. The Trust has supported frontline research and innovation in several top-ranking institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, and the IISc. The Pratiksha Trust has also recently launched a unique, extra-mural funding initiative called EMSTAR (Extra Mural Support for Transformational Aging Brain Research) to fund high-risk, high-reward inter-disciplinary projects in aging brain research and innovation.
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