AIM brings innovations from labs to hospitals and masses

The human body, like Space, is an endless frontier made even more complex by the irreversibility of life by the arrow of time. Similar to the mystery of origin of the Universe some problems in the human body are so complex, for example, the problem of qualia or the hard problem of consciousness– ‘Why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious’ that it has given the league of neuroscientists, philosophers and empiricists a perpetual “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” or the Upanishadic ‘Neti Neti’ limbo.

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Another such outlier among the mysteries of nature which has currently eclipsed the developmental goals of poor and rich countries alike is an infinitesimally small virus, rather a particular strain of coronavirus that ordinarily causes the common cold. Let’s dig deeper.

Evolutionary biologists are still to figure out whether to classify viruses as living or dead or something in between; whether they are a rare anomaly of nature or the first and the most abundant form of cellular organisation in the Universe. Human genome that is made up of 5-10 per cent of viral DNA tells us that we have been at the receiving end of countless virus attacks throughout our evolutionary history but scientists are now coming to terms with the fact that viruses may have played a very important role in our evolution e.g. in the development of female placenta which essentially helped us establish at the top of the food chain. In the far future scientists envision using viruses in development of nanomachines, cancer killing cyborgs and advanced geriatric care.

Ranjan Das, Innovation Lead, NITI Aayog

Beating the sneaky microbes