Philanthropic support: Trust to give B'luru research centre Rs 450 cr for ageing brain

‘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’ Prof Rangarajan

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: In a landmark development in philanthropic support for deep science in India, the Pratiksha trust will give the centre for brain research (CBR) 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 in 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, Bengalurubased 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, stateof-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 added.

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 worldclass 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.