BU developing low cost medicines
Coimbatore based Bharathiar University (BU) is in the process of setting up a nano tech facility to develop low-cost medicines for critical health disorders. The centre would entail an investment of Rs 500 crore over five years and would be set up with financial support from the Tamil Nadu government, Arkansas University and DRDO. BU is open to private participation for this. Nanotechnology is a branch of engineering that deals with the design and manufacture of extremely small electronic circuits and mechanical devices. It is often expressed as a technology where dimensions and tolerances in the range of 0.1 nanometer (nm) to 100 nm play a critical role.Mr G Thiruvasagam, vicechancellor of the university, said the centre will undertake research in nano sciences for formulating cheaper drugs for heart ailments, AIDS, cancer and Parkinson’s disease. “We plan to get the project going by August-end. The project would be carried out in a phased manner and the first phase — to be carried at a cost of Rs 100 crore — would involve manufacturing low-cost medicines, medical equipment and military — oriented devices using nano science,” he added. The university is also in the process of developing an integrated chip that will benefit the visually-impaired. “The chip will be designed in such a way that it will read aloud the text to them thus saving the time involved in using the conventional Braille method,” he added.
