Pratiksha Trust, IISc sign MoU for research on Neurodegenerative Diseases

Pratiksha Trust has generously agreed to provide support to CBR with an initial outlay to the tune of Rs 450.27 crore over the next 10 years, for research, innovation and translation

The Pratiksha Trust has signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Centre for Brain Research (CBR), to support fundamental and translational research on neurodegenerative diseases of the elderly population.

Under this MoU, the Pratiksha 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.

The current MoU is an extension to support long-term studies on the aging brain. In a parallel initiative, the Pratiksha Trust will be supporting several ambitious, high-risk-high-reward interdisciplinary extramural projects in aging brain research.

The Centre currently has 10 Principal Investigators supported by more than 20 Research Scientists, Post-Doctoral Fellows, and Medical Officers, and 22 PhD students.

The Centre has initiated and completed four years of two unique longitudinal studies to track the aging brain over a 15 to 20-year period in individuals older than 45 years of age – one for a rural cohort (in Srinivasapura Taluk of Kolar District, Karnataka) with 10,000 volunteers, and the other for an urban cohort (in and around Bengaluru) with 1,000 volunteers. In the rural cohort, more than 5,400 volunteers have already been recruited and more than 6,600 multi-modal assessments have been completed (baseline as well as yearly follow-ups).

The substantial extension of support by the Pratiksha Trust through the current MoU will help scale up the research and innovation activities at the Centre significantly. 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). The funding will also enable the Centre to proactively explore and achieve complete bench-to-bedside translation of the outcomes from the interdisciplinary research.

Prof G Rangarajan, Director, IISc, 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. I thank Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan and Mrs Sudha Gopalakrishnan for their continued commitment to such crucial research and the unprecedented level of support that they have given.”

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