Newsletter of Sri Ramachandra University

….Connecting SRU

June 2014

Helix to HealthHelix to Health

srubridges@gmail.com2June ‘14

From the Editor’s Desk

Are you ready?

Bridges - Connecting SRU

Bridges Committee

Patron:

Shri. V. R. VenkataachalamChancellor

Advisory Board:

Prof. J. S. N. MurthyVice-Chancellor

Prof. S. RangaswamiProfessor of Eminence inMedical Education

Prof. K.V. SomasundaramDean of Faculties

Editor-in-Chief:

Dr. Sheela Ravinder. S.

Editor:

Ms. Hemalatha C. R.

Co-Editor:

Mr. Antony Leo Aseer P.

Editorial Board:

Mr. Abhinand P. A.

Dr. Archana P. Kumar

Dr. Ganesh V.

Prof. Kalpana Suresh

Dr. Nithya Jagdish

Prof. Prakash Boominathan

Prof. Sandhya Sundaram

Dr. Sreelekha B.

Secretarial Assistance:

Ms. Stella Augustus

Ms. Geetha R.

Photography:

Mr. Anand Kumar A.

Art & Design:

Mr. Arunagiri S.

Printing:

Mr. Velayudam S.

Cover Photo Courtesy:

Ms. R. ShowriIII yr., M.Sc. Medical Anatomy

Beloved Readers,

Let us stay connected…

College is a place where people with wonderfully varying interests, backgrounds,

perspectives and ideas get together. It is the phase when we find infinite possibilities to pursue

our intellectual passions, discover what excites us and develop friendships that will last the

rest of our lives. We welcome the new entrants of this academic year who have chosen to be a

part of the Ramachandra family to the journey together.

Self-avoidance is a strategy used by octopuses as an effective restraint to avert getting

attached to each other, says Believe it or not. The public awareness campaigns held in the

campus educate and give an evidence based overview of the various issues. Our participation

in such campaigns helps garner and mobilize community support making the outreach

efforts of educating the public at large more effective.

Sheela Ravinder. S. Editor-in-Chief

thBridges celebrates its 6 Anniversary in July 2014. So get geared-up with your creative skills

to participate in our anniversary competitions and win prizes.

Memories

Sri Ramachandra College of Nursing observed the ‘Breast Feeding Week’ by conducting a

rally with the theme, ‘The Infant Milk Substitute Act – Making it Known to People’ at Marina thBeach on 6 August 2006.

Happenings

srubridges@gmail.com3

Bridges - Connecting SRU

S r i R a m a c h a n d r a Center for Women's Advancement (SRCWA) conducted a workshop on - An Awareness Program on Modesty of Women at Workplace: Its Genesis

thand Practice on 17 May. 34 faculty members benefited.

Vishaka Guidelines

Faculty of Nursing,

Alumni Unit and Student

Nurses Associa t ion

o b s e r v e d t h e

th on 12 May. 190

members attended.

International Nurse's

Day

De pt . o f OBGYN

Nursing organized a

th on 30 Apr. 121

students benefited.

Caree r Or ien ta t ion

Program

Faculty of Dental Sciences observed t h e

by conducting a Blood Donation Program

thon 28 Apr. Eight faculty members donated blood as part of this event.

W o r l d Hemophilia Day

Faculty of Pharmacy rdconducted the 3 Faculty

Development Program o n

th on 6May. 40 delegates from various colleges across Tamil Nadu attended. Mr. P. Manikandan, Soft

Skill Trainer & PA to Honourable Minister for Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowment (HRCE), Tamil Nadu was one of the resource persons.

S t a n d a r d s f o r Pharmacy Teachers – a Holistic Approach

June ‘14

thDept. of Oral Medicine and Radiology, for the 6 consecutive year conducted a from

th st29 to 31 May. 112 patients benefited.

Free Oral Pre-cancer and Cancer Screening Camp

stThe Public Awareness Committee of the Faculty of Dental Sciences observed the on 31 May. The events included:

lrelease of balloons with No Tobacco symbol la skit by the interns of the Dental College in Vayalanallur Rural Center, G-Block Lobby & Dental College Lobby.

World No Tobacco Day

Bridges - Connecting SRU

srubridges@gmail.com4June ‘14

New Projects Sanctioned

Title Principal Investigator Funding Agency

Identification of novel molecular markers involved in resistance in prostate cancer Dept. of Pathology Nuclear Sciences (BRNS)

radio Dr. Sandhya Sundaram Board of Research in

MoU

An MoU has been signed between Sri Ramachandra University and Safety Engineers Association to conduct NEBOSH-UK course at SRU th on 9 May, 2014.

Date Event

18.05.’14 Dr. Sahiba Sabarwal, final yr., PG received ‘Developing Country Eye Researcher Fellowship Award’ at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Conference in Orlando, Florida, USA

09.05.’14 CME on ‘SLE Clinical Presentation and Management’ by Prof. Amita Aggarwal, SGPGIMS, Lucknow

06.05.’14 CME on ‘Recent Research Approaches to the Etiological Studies in Orofacial Clefts’ by Prof. Ronald Munger, Center in Epidemiological Studies, Utah State University, USA & Prof. Peter Mossey, Director, WHO Collaborating Center, University of Dundee, Scotland

06.05.’14 CDE program on ‘Workshop on Age Assessment in Dentistry’ by Dr. Jayakumar Jayaraman, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dept. of Pediatric Dentistry, Hong Kong

26.04.’14 CME on ‘Standard Procedures in Medicolegal Certification’ by Prof. R. Selva Kumar, Head, Dept. of Forensic Medicine, Kilpauk Medical College & Prof. Srinivasa Ragavan, Head, Dept. of Forensic Medicine, Saveetha Medical College, Chennai

nd23.04.’14 Ms. Ritvi K. Bagadia, CRI secured 2 place under Scientific Paper Category in a symposium at Scope ’14 held at Sathyabama Dental College and Hospital, Chennai

nd03.04.’14 & Ms. Sofi Beaula W., Research Scholar won the 2 prize in oral presentation in the National04.04.’14 Conference on ‘Wonders of the Small: Exploring the Microbial World’ organized by Pondicherry

University

Department

Ophthalmology

General Medicine & Rheumatology

EHE & Plastic Surgery

Pedodontics & Preventive Dentistry and Oral Medicine & Radiology

Forensic Medicine

Pedodontics & Preventive Dentistry

Human Genetics

Dr. A. Selvam,Professor and Principal,Faculty of Management.

Dr. S. Senthil Kumar,Course Chairman,

Faculty of Allied Health Sciences.

Dr. K. Balaji Singh,Professor & Head,

Dept. of General Surgery.

Greetings

Reach Out

Dept. of Psychiatry and Sri Khan Gurunadhar Meignana Sabai Trust, an NGO organized a thMental Health Camp at Thozhur, Thiruvallur district on 7 Jun. 62 out of 48 people screened, showed

symptoms of mental health problems. They were counseled and advised further management.

Bridges - Connecting SRU

srubridges@gmail.com5June ‘14

Today, tuberculosis (TB) accounts for the annual loss of approximately 1.5 million lives worldwide and

the pandemic is exacerbated by poverty, homelessness, synergy with HIV/AIDS and widespread drug

resistance (WHO, 2012). While most of the nine million new TB cases occur in the developing world,

the industrialized nations, especially Europe, is also at increasing risk due to the inexorable spread of drug-resistant disease through global

travel and immigration. There is an estimated 650,000 cases of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), which no longer respond to frontline

treatment.

The past decade has seen intensive efforts to discover and develop new drugs to treat drug-susceptible MDR. European researchers have

announced a potential new antibiotic that could work against MDR strains of TB. Researchers of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de

Lausanne (EPFL) and A N Bach Institute in Moscow published an article in EMBO Molecular Medicine Journal to report that their antibiotic,

PBTZ169, is highly effective. The two institutes have now announced the setting up of a foundation that will work on development of

antibiotics with funding from the European Union. A press release by EPFL said that PBTZ169 attacks the bacterium's strong point - the cell

wall, which forms an impenetrable shield against antibiotics and the patient's immune system. "Our molecule makes the bacterium literally

burst open," said Stewart Cole, Study Director and Head, EPFL's Global Health Institute. His team showed that PBTZ169 when combined

with a standard drug, pyrazinamide, and a more recent one, bedaquiline, can destroy TB strains. The release quoted Cole as saying, "This could

be the winning strategy. These molecules attack different targets in the bacterium. By combining them, we drastically reduce the risk that it will

mutate into more resistant forms.”

As a treatment, PBTZ169 has many advantages. It is not expensive to produce, since it is relatively easy to synthesize. Initial tests have

shown good compatibility with other anti-tuberculosis treatments and it is expected to be equally compatible with anti-retrovirals used

to treat AIDS, as HIV-positive individuals are particularly vulnerable to tuberculosis, and cases of cross infection are on the rise. It will

be immensely beneficial to the community if the preclinical development of PBTZ169 is completed rapidly, since it is an attractive,

well-understood drug that offers great potential not only for the control of TB, but also for other mycobacterial diseases such as leprosy

and Buruli ulcer.

Source: Makarov, Vadim, et al. "Towards a new combination therapy for tuberculosis with next generation benzothiazinones." EMBO molecular medicine 6.3

(2014): 372-383.

Global NewsA New Promise

th thNational Service Scheme Special Camp of SRU was held at Annambedu from 6 to 9 May. A socio-economic health survey in association with RHTC - Vayalanallur, a multi-specialty medical camp in association with SRMC & RI and an awareness program on maternal and child healthcare were conducted during the camp.

A workshop on ‘Optimizing your voice’ at RMK Engineering College, Kavarapettai and nd rdSwamy's School, Porur was organised on 22 & 23 Apr. 130 teachers participated.

Reach Out

An octopus’s arms are covered in hundreds of suckers that will stick to just about anything,

with one important exception. Those suckers generally would not grab onto the octopus itself;

otherwise, the impressively flexible animals would quickly find themselves all tangled up. The

researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem report that they have discovered how octopuses manage this feat. Even as the

octopuses’ brains are unaware of what their arms are doing, a chemical produced by octopus skin temporarily prevents their suckers from

sucking.

Binyamin Hochner and his colleagues had been working with octopuses for many years, focusing especially on their flexible arms and

body motor control. There is a very good reason that octopuses do not know where their arms are exactly, in the same way that people or other

animals do. “Our motor control system is based on a rather fixed representation of the motor and sensory systems in the brain in a format of

maps body parts coordinate,” Hochner explains. That works for us because our rigid skeletons limit the number of possibilities.

“It is hard to envisage similar mechanisms to function in the octopus brain because its very long and flexible arms have an infinite number of

degrees of freedom,” Hochner continues. “Therefore, using such maps would have been tremendously difficult for the octopus, and maybe

even impossible.”

Many experiments have supported the notion that octopuses lack accurate knowledge about the position of their arms. The

researchers observed the behavior of amputated octopus arms, which remain very active for an hour after separation. Those observations

showed that the arms never grabbed octopus skin, though they would grab a skinned octopus arm. The octopus arms didn’t grab Petri dishes

covered with octopus skin, either, and they attached to dishes covered with octopus skin extract with much less force than they otherwise

would.

“The results so far show, and for the first time, that the skin of the octopus prevents octopus arms from attaching to each other or to

themselves in a reflexive manner,” the researchers write. “The drastic reduction in the response to the skin crude extract suggests that a

specific chemical signal in the skin mediates the inhibition of sucker grabbing.” In contrast to the behavior of the amputated arms, live

octopuses can override that automatic mechanism when it is convenient.

Hochner and his colleagues have not yet identified the active agent in the animals’ self-avoidance behavior, but they say it is yet another

demonstration of octopus intelligence. The self-avoidance strategy might even find its way into bioinspired robot design. The research

promises potential applications in developing flexible surgical manipulator in the shape of an octopus arm.

whereby the

Source: Nesher, Nir, Guy Levy, Frank W. Grasso, and Binyamin Hochner. “Self-Recognition Mechanism between Skin and Suckers Prevents Octopus Arms from

Interfering with Each Other.” Current Biology (2014).

Believe it or NotNever ‘Knotty’ Octopus!

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Bridges - Connecting SRU

June ‘14

The Pharmacovigilance Program of India (PvPI) was launched with a broad objective to

safeguard the health of Indian population. Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) are reported from all

over the country to the National Coordinating Center (NCC) - PvPI, which also works in

collaboration with the global ADR Monitoring Center (WHO - Uppsala Monitoring Center),

Sweden to contribute to the global ADRs database. NCC-PvPI monitors the ADRs among

Indian population and helps the regulatory authority of India (Central Drugs Standard Control

Organization) in taking decision for safe use of medicines. thThe Pharmacovigilance Center of SRU is located in the 5 floor of Sri Ramachandra Hospital. It has been recognized by the PvPI and

designated as Adverse Drug Reactions Monitoring Center under PvPI network officially from January 2014. The adverse drug reactions

reported by the physicians from Sri Ramachandra Hospital are documented. The ADR forms are available in all in-patient departments. The

pharmacologists perform the causality assessment of adverse drug reactions and report it to NCC at Ghaziabad. thContact details: Room No. 525, 5 Floor, OP Block, Sri Ramachandra Hospital, Extn. No. 8902.

Did you know?Pharmacovigilance Center of SRU

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Bridges - Connecting SRU

June ‘14

It would be instructive to consider Swami Rama's description of the effect of soma based on his personal experience. This happened during

his stay at Ujaili ashram in Uttarkashi. Swami Rama was raised in the Himalayan cave monasteries and was ordained a monk in early childhood.

He later founded the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, USA.

Swami Rama was interested in learning about the properties of soma and got in touch with a renowned herbologist of the Himalayan

mountains who was willing to prepare the herbal extract as described in vedic tradition. The vivid description of the effects of ashta varga (juice

prepared from eight herbs) which the Swami and the herbologist ingested is revealing. “We both drank the mixture” the Swami tells us in the

book Living with the Himalayan Masters (2007) “Its taste was a little bit bitter and sour. After a while he (the herbologist) started chanting and

swinging, and ultimately threw off all his clothes and started dancing. As he danced, he began shouting that he was Shiva, the Lord of the

universe, and cried, “Where is my Parvati? ...” This disturbed all the students who came to visit me in the morning. They tried to restrain him,

but he became so strong that five people could not hold him down … But I had a severe headache. I felt as though my head were going to blow

up. I held my head in both my hands … I became so restless I felt like jumping into the Ganges, crossing it, and running away into the forest. It

was a chaotic experience…”

The use of soma was recommended by the mountain herbalists of India to turn the mind inwards. The herb was also used in rituals which

became part of the religious ceremonies of the ancient Aryans. Swami Rama concluded that the psychic experiences have some validity and

are higher than the experiences we receive through the senses but warns that they are of no value as far as spirituality is concerned. The soma

rasa might help inferior students who are incapable of sitting in one position for a long time and who do not have the ability to concentrate

their minds. The Swami says such external stimuli are not permitted to be used in any of the schools of yoga although some inferior sects of

sadhus use some of these herbs without knowing their proper usage. The herb affects the locomotor system and makes one insensitive to

external stimuli. The thoughts then start running in one direction.

After careful study of the use of psychedelic preparations over a number of years Swami Rama concluded that “the harm they can do far

outweighs any positive benefits they might have. Those who are not psychologically prepared will have negative experiences either when they

ingest the intoxicant or later. Those who are prepared don't need such drugs.” Repeated use of such herbs can bring on feelings of depression

and lead to dangerous psychological addiction and is to be avoided at all costs.

Prof. S. Rangaswami,Professor of Eminence in Medical Education, SRU.

(will be continued…)

Most computer users do not take full advantage of the computer mouse. By learning to use the mouse

effectively, plenty of time can be saved and overall productivity can be increased.

Shift key and mouse click

Many text editors and programs allow the user to highlight all or portions of text using the Shift key and the mouse. By clicking at the

beginning of a text, holding down the Shift key, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking at the end of the text we can highlight all of the text.

In addition, by holding down the Alt key while dragging and highlighting text in a text editor allows the user to selectively highlight text. This

can be useful if the paragraph or text is in a column.

Take full advantage of the scroll wheel

Every PC user would be familiar with a mouse wheel's ability to scroll up and down on a page. However, this wheel can also do so much

more; it can also be used as a button. Pressing down on the wheel makes it act like a third mouse button. This can be used to open a web page in

a tab by clicking the wheel on any link and can also be used to close a tab by clicking the wheel on any open tab. By holding down the Ctrl key

and scrolling up, a web page or word document can be zoomed in and similarly scrolling down will result in zoom out. Holding down the Shift

key while scrolling up or down in most Internet browsers can help in going back and forward between web pages.

Select with double and triple click

Any word can be selected by double-clicking the word. By clicking the mouse button three times on any word, the user can highlight the

whole paragraph or sentence.

Ctrl key and mouse click for highlight

For selecting multiple objects or highlight multiple sections of a text, the user can use the left-click while holding down the Ctrl key.

Soul to Soul

Bits ‘n’ BytesEffective use of Computer Mouse

8June ‘14

Bridges - Connecting SRU

For internal circulation only

Colors

Crimson Blossom Wow Mauve

Prof. R. Padmavathi,HOD, Dept. of Physiology

Prof. Prakash Boominathan,Dept. of SLHS

Your CornerMother

thThe 40 Bridges Monthly Book Review was held on 06.06.'14

Book : The Diary of Anne Frank

Author : Anne Frank

Reviewed by : Ms. Gayatri Padmanaban, Final yr., MBBS

Forthcoming Bridges Monthly Book Review

Jul. 2014 – The Shiva Trilogy by Amish TripathirdTo be reviewed by Ms. Aravinda Hari Ram, 3 yr., MBBS.

A lioness at heart, an iron woman she is;A warrior queen with no spear or sword.Never shy of facing a hurdle or a challenge;Always at the forefront with no fear or anxiety.

Battle? She did, a zillion times;Against illness which dared to touch her tots.Triumphant she stood always, Not conceding an inch to the all marauding foes.

Always with a smile, never a frown;Brimming with love, concern and care.A shoulder to lean on, a friend to confide in;Always there, as a savior and more.

Day in and day out, doing her chores;Never bored, never fatigued, not a word of complaint.Standing tall amid selfish souls and greedy vermin,The embodiment of benevolence and sacrifice - Mother.

- Mr. P. A. Abhinand,- Research Scholar, Bioinformatics

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