“Students experimenting, building, failing, and learning is now the norm”| Prof. Mohanasankar S, EE

[00:01:38] The Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre: Origin story

[00:02:39] Imaging the Human Brain: The challenges involved

[00:03:06] The Brain Centre: The most advanced technology platform to map the human brain

[00:04:38] Human Brain Imaging: Engineering and Computational challenges 

[00:09:28] The Human Brain in Detail: The kind of research this unlocks

[00:13:34] Multi-disciplinary and Inter-disciplinary: Collaborations at a global level

[00:17:43] HTIC: Solving for lack of indigenous med tech products

[00:22:36] Funding for the Centres: HTIC and the Brain Centre

[00:24:11] What is HTIC: Challenges and Achievements

[00:28:16] Trusting Indian Products: Encouraging buyers to trust indigenous medical devices

[00:30:12] Economics of Healthcare in India: Importing is possible due to patient volume

[00:32:03] Mobile Eye Surgery Unit (MESU): Origin and solving the problem of access

[00:39:14] Prof. Mohan as Faculty: Electrical Engineering, Instrumentation and Biomedical Electronic Systems

[00:40:09] Electrical Engineering: Building solutions and products

[00:42:15] Evolution of Electrical Engineering: Medical devices and healthcare

[00:44:01] Building at CFI: An interdisciplinary approach 

[00:45:36] Free Electives in Curriculum: Encourage students to explore courses

[00:49:01] PatentSystem: Intellectual Property and publishing papers

[00:52:56] Viable and Sustainable R&D: Justify investments in R&D

[00:55:30] Global Patenting and Commercialisation: Navigating regulation across countries

[00:57:30] Patents and Research: The extent and likelihood of student involvement

[01:02:06] Change in Dynamics: From student and teacher to collaborators

[01:05:31] Research Labs in IITM: Opportunities for students

[01:06:03] Prof Mohan’s Journey: Return to India and working in an academic environment

[01:10:42] Research Labs: Attracting the right talent 

[01:18:59] Global Exposure and Future Prospects: Exchange students need to increase 

[00:01:38] The Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre was created to map the human brain. 

[00:12:55] IIT Madras

[00:17:46] HTIC (Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre) was created to make indigenous medical technology devices available and affordable in India instead of importing them

[00:22:43] The Department of Biotech (DBT) provided the seed fund for the HTIC. 

[00:22:49] BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council) supported the incubator, which incubates startups

[00:23:22] The Principal Scientific Advisor’s Office took the first risk of developing the platform for the Brain Centre

[00:28:24] Sankara Nethralaya is the main buyer of the Mobile Cataract unit 

[00:44:05] CFI Centre for Innovation is the place to build in IIT Madras

[00:57:08] The Technology Transfer Office, which comes under ICSR is driving commercialisation of IP (Intellectual Property)

[01:04:53] Amrut’s father was a faculty member at IIT Kharagpur

[00:01:50] The Brain Centre was started because of Kris Gopalakrishnan, an alumnus of IIT Madras

[00:22:46] HTIC received seed funding during Dr. Maharaj Kishan Bhan’s tenure

[00:32:09] The mobile eye surgery unit started after a conversation with Dr. S S Badrinath

[00:35:48] Dr. Jayaraj Joseph was one of the key people who drove the development of the mobile eye surgery unit 

[00:36:02] Dr. Jayshankar Venkataraman and Dr. V Jagadeesh Kumar were also part of the mobile eye surgery unit

[00:40:24] Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi were leaders who defined their fields

[00:40:32] Professor Shanthi Pavan was also a leader in VSI

[00:40:38] Professor Radhakrishna Ganti is one of the younger batch of leaders in their field

[00:02:47] A Micron is 1/1000th of a millimetre. There are about a few hundred billion microns in the brain

[00:06:14] A single red blood cell in the body is about 5 to 10 microns

[00:07:11] The information of the entire adult human brain is a few Petabytes. A petabyte (PB) is a unit of digital data storage, equal to 1,000 terabytes (TB).