scientists

Bangalee Scientists

The Bangalee nation, both east and west, has always been a seat of culturing scientific knowledge. This was especially true for the pre-independence period. A number of factors led to this upsurge. The brightest stars were Jagadish Chandra Bosu, Meghnad Saha, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray and others. This phenomenon, though centered around the University of Calcutta, did have its jewels else where too, the most notable being Satyendra Nath Bose of the Dacca University. There is however a sense that the glory days are gone. This is far from true. Rather today, we have an increased number of Bangalees, spread all over the world doing excellent scientific research in topics as varied from solid state physics to cognitive neuroscience. Here is a listing and short descriptions of the new icons of Bangalees in science

1. Mriganka Sur

He is the Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience, is head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT). He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1974 with a Bachelor of Technology degree. He received the MS (1975) and PhD (1978) from Vanderbilt University. After doing postdoctoral research at SUNY Stony Brook and a faculty appointment at Yale University School of Medicine, Professor Sur joined the faculty of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT in 1986. He was named full Professor in 1993, associate department head in 1994, and head in 1997.

Professor Sur uses experimental and theoretical approaches to study the cerebral cortex of the brain, the seat of our highest abilities. His laboratory studies the plasticity of cortex during brain development, and dynamic changes in mature cortical networks during information processing, learning and memory. In a seminal experiment, his laboratory examined how the environment influenced the development of cortical circuits by "rewiring" the brain. The retina, which normally projects to visual structures in the brain, was induced to project to structures that normally process hearing. Vision altered the development of neuronal connections in auditory cortex, and enabled animals to use their "hearing" cortex to "see". These findings have important implications for restoring function after brain damage, and for constructing neural prostheses for recovery from stroke or trauma. In a set of significant recent experiments, his laboratory has shown how neurons of the mature visual cortex alter their responses dynamically based on the spatial and temporal context of stimuli. These studies provide fundamental information on higher brain mechanisms, including those involved in vision, pattern recognition and learning.

2. Sumantra ( Shona ) Chattarji

He is a faculty with the National Centre for Biological Sciences, India in the field on neurophysiology of Learning and Memory as well as neurobiology of stress. One of the foremost in the field on neurobiology of stress, he collaborates extensively with Susumu Tonegawa ( Nobel Prize Winner) of MIT and Bruce Mc Ewen of Rockefeller University .Dr. S. Chattarji's pre-doctoral studies were at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, doctoral work at Johns Hopkins University and The Salk Institute, U.S.A. and post-doctoral work at Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A. He is the recipient of several prestigious visiting fellowships. His lab has units of animal behavior study, electrophysiology , cell biology as well as computational neuroscience.

As per his lab statement "A basic necessity for the survival of any organism is that it should be able to anticipate changes in its environment. Thus, the capacity to remember and learn from past experiences is one of the greatest triumphs of the evolution of the nervous system. It is this predictive power of learning and memory that give such immense survival value. But since it works inductively, the brain can only base its predictions on probabilities drawn from the past. Therefore, the biological value of memory is not only that it allows one to reminisce about the past, but that it also permits one to prepare for the unknown future.

Work in our laboratory focuses on the cellular mechanisms that enable the mammalian brain to learn and remember. The heart of the problem is to explain global changes in a brain’s output, on the basis of local changes in individual neurons. In other words, we want to understand how neuronal plasticity, a local property, can result in learning, a global property. To this end, we use a combination of electrophysiological, neuroanatomical, imaging, behavioral and theoretical techniques to study neurons and their networks in two areas of the mammalian brain that are critically involved in learning and memory – the hippocampus and the amygdala."

3. Anjan Chatterjee

He is the Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the foremost researchers with a medical background in cutting edge cognitive neuroscience. He has lectured extensively and is an authority in his field.

His research interest is varied-The cognitive neuroscience of spatial attention and representation, the neural basis of language, and the relationship of space and language In his own words "How are we aware of and maneuver through space in our environment? How are we aware of the space occupied by our bodies Research in my laboratory is directed at understanding the neural bases of spatial attention and representation. Patients with focal brain damage usually to their right hemispheres can have dramatic disturbances of the awareness of contralesional space. They may even be unaware of the left side of their own bodies despite being alert and conversant! How is such a phenomenon possible? We investigate such patients to understand how different sensory modalities contribute to spatial representations, how attention influences perception, how intention to act affects spatial cognition, and how focal brain damage can produce dramatic and bizarre disturbances of awareness.

Another focus of inquiry in my laboratory is the neural bases for language and how language relates to other cognitive systems. Language is generally considered a propositional or algebraic system, in which arbitrary symbols are used as referents for objects and events in the world. Yet our sensory and motor systems are organized in an analogue or geometric fashion. If one believes that much of our knowledge of the world derives from our sensory and motor systems and we use language to encode that knowledge, then how are these two different kinds of

representational formats related? We are pursuing the idea that certain concepts can be coded pre-linguistically and these are organized spatially.

We believe that data from converging methods greatly help constrain cognitive theory. We use behavioral studies and functional neuroimaging in normal subjects to test ideas developed from the lesion studies."

4. Subhash Chandra Mukherjee

He is Professor and the Head of the Department of Neurology, Medical College, Kolkata, University of Calcutta. He is an excellent lecturer and is an authority on the neurological problems associated with chronic ground water arsenic toxicity- a very important problem faced by both West Bengal and Bangladesh. He has published extensively on the subject.

His other works include important molecular genetic studies on different movement disorders and ataxias in Indian population.

5. Shams H Mahmud

He is a Professor with the Department of Psychology, University of Dhaka. He is also Hanse Institute of Advanced Studies fellow in Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences.

His primary research interests are "Parallel detection of orientation gratings and perceptual learning. " He has also worked in the University of Bremen, Germany on this topic.

6. Prodip Bosu

He is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Neuroscience, Brain Institute, College of Medicine, University of Florida.He is a M.D. from the University of Dhaka and Ph.D. University of Hong Kong. He is interested in spinal cord injury and the medical aspects of rehabilitation, very important for patients of traumatic hemiplegia/paraplegia. In his own description,"The primary focus of my research on spinal cord injury (SCI), and traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been on understanding of motor neuroplasticity, and spasticity following neurorehabilitation. My recent studies (funded by Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation) based on rehabilitation strategies utilizing locomotor activity to direct constructive plasticity of spinal cord locomotor circuits by using treadmill, and stationary bicycle training programs. These studies are in progress in our laboratory to determine to what extent the locomotor training induced improvements relate to modifying the underlying neurophysiology, which type of training (treadmill vs. cycling) can most effectively and efficiently produce these changes, and how the nature and severity of the injury affects the capacity of each training approach to influence these fundamental neurophysiological processes. In particular, these studies will address how these two rehabilitation strategies initiate constructive plasticity of spinal locomotor circuits specific to muscle motoneuron pool, segmental interneurons, and the influence of descending controls and changes over them. "

7. Kalidas Nandi

He is a Professor with the Boston University School of Medicine. He did his medical studies from the University of Calcutta , MD ( University of Calcutta) and his PhD from Emory University , Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

He is a professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology and a senior authority in his field.

8. Dipak K Sarkar

He is a distinguished Professor at the Centre for Alcohol Studies, State University of New Jersey. He is now considered one of the best people around in the field of the interface of neuroendocrinology and cancer biology. He has a PhD from the University of Calcutta and a D.Phil from the Oxford University. He has held varied positions in Oxford University , Yale University School of Medicine, Michigan State University , University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and Washington State University.

His long-term research plan is to understand how alcohol, natural estrogens, and environmental estrogens alter neuroendocrine, reproductive, and immune functions to increase the risk of the development of tumors, including prolactinomas and mammary tumors.

9. Somsankar Dasgupta

He is a Associate Professor at the Department of Neurology , Medical University of South Carolina. He did his PhD from the University of Calcutta. He is deeply into the field of neurochemistry.

His research interests are Glycosphingolipids: Biosynthesis and characterization: Structural elucidation by gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, stepwise exoglycosidase digestion, NMR. Expressional specificity in brain development and myelinogenesis in regulation with glycosyltransferases and glycosidases. Tissue and cell specificity by immunohistochemistry and immunocytochemistry. Evaluation as an antigen/marker in autoimmune dys-/demyelination, in dysmyelinating disorder and other neuropathological disorders. Sphingolipids and sphingoids mediated signal transduction and cell apoptosis

10. Mir Ahamed Hossain

Mir Ahamed Hossain is a research scientist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. He is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Hossain pursued his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Calcutta, India, where he obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1990. Dr. Hossain is a molecular/cellular biologist with considerable expertise in experimental neuroscience and neurotoxicity.He served as a research fellow in the University’s Department of Biochemistry before coming to the United States in 1990 for postdoctoral fellowships; first in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Colorado and then in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Department of Neurology at Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Over the past several years, the object of Dr. Hossain’s research has been on two different directions: (1) to understand the molecular and intracellular signaling mechanism(s) of neuroprotection and repair against neurotoxicity and hypoxic/ischemic brain injury within the central nervous system, and (2) to study molecular mechanisms of lead-induced cerebrovascular dysfunction and changes in intracellular second messenger signaling pathways and gene expression in central nervous system neurons.

In the first area, Dr. Hossain has established a novel endothelial cell-based method of delivering growth and neurotrophic factors gene into neonatal brain.Dr. Hossain’s research will help to identify novel molecular targets that could become the basis for developing broadly applicable neuroprotective strategies for the treatment of hypoxic / ischemic brain injury and potentially neurodegenerative diseases.

In the second area, Dr. Hossain seeks to elucidate lead-induced gene expression changes at the blood-brain barrier and establishing their molecular/biochemical basis.Dr. Hossain’s findings will help to identify lead’s cerebrovascular molecular targets and produce novel insights into general mechanisms by which lead disrupts brain function.

11. Probal Banerjee

He is an associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry and CSI/IBR, Center for Developmental Neuroscience, CUNY, USA. His Masters degree was from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and PhD from Indian Institute of Science. He was also Post-Doctoral Research (Neuroscience), University of Chicago.

His research interests are Signaling by G protein-coupled receptors, apoptosis, and neuronal survival. To describe his won work he says "Embryonic brain development requires an initial burst of proliferation and migration of preneuronal cells to their respective destinations. This is followed by a phase when a fraction of these cells successfully mature and make neuronal synapses, whereas the others undergo apoptosis. Our research has shown that the serotonin 1A receptor (5-HT1A-R) can be used as a tool to stimulate proliferation of premitotic neuronal cells and also inhibit undesirable apoptosis of brain neurons. Thus, 5-HT1A agonists inhibit anoxia-induced increase in activity of the pro-apoptotic protease caspase-3 through sustained stimulation of the extra-cellular signal-regulated kinases ERK-1 and ERK-2. Our studies also demonstrate that stimulation of this 5-HT1A-R?ERK1/2 pathway could be effective in suppressing caspase-3 activation caused by a wide variety of conditions, such as Alzheimer's ß-peptide treatment, H2O2 insult, anoxia, etc. Therefore, the overall research objective of our laboratory is to study the role of the serotonin 1A receptor and the stimulated ERK1/2 pathway in the proliferation, differentiation and survival of brain neurons during embryonic development of mice. Also, this project is focused on understanding the complete mechanism of 5-HT1A-R-mediated pathway that leads to the inhibition of caspase-3.

In a second project, we study the apoptosis-associated changes in cell membrane that prepare a dying neurotumor cell for phagocytosis"

12. Sukhamay Lahiri

He is a Professor of Physiology with the Department of Physiology, Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania. He is a doctorate from both the University of Calcutta and Oxford University. He is a leading authority in the neuronal mechanisms of sensing changes in oxygen level.

His research interests are (1) Mechanisms of immediate O2 and CO2-H+ sensing by carotid body cells. (2) Prolyl hydroxylases, oxygen sensor; hypoxia inducible factor (s). Long-term hypoxia induces factors which lead to genomic expression in different tissues including the carotid body. These expressions help maintain the O2 homeostasis. He has accomplished first rate research and has published extensively about the subject.

13. Abdul Ahad: Astronomer & Space Science Researcher

Abdul Ahad was born in the Sylhet district of Bangladesh on 15 December 1968. He is a muslim and has been a resident citizen of the United Kingdom since August 1978.

Abdul obtained his secondary school education in the United Kingdom and graduated from the University of Luton in 1994. To date he has held a number of executive and management roles in industry, developing a broadly based career within multi-national corporations across such functions as operations planning, supply chain process management and brands marketing.

Abdul' interests in astronomy took off in the early 1980s at the age of 12, when his preliminary specialisms were in the fields of visual observing with a notable leaning toward positional and mathematical astronomy. When he was 15, at the dawn of the present era of home computers, Abdul compiled and wrote his own celestial mechanics algorithms for the precise computation of positions of planets, comets and minor planets from given orbital elements.

More recently, his spare time scientific interests branched out into such diverse fields as space technology, spaceflight simulations and models, space science missions and robotics. In January 2002, he founded the 'AA Institute of Space Science & Technology', a conceptual research institute dedicated to his own space science projects. He has since undertaken a NASA-inspired program of self funded, self initiated pursuits in such pioneering fields as rocketry and aerospace and remote sensing via tele-robotics. In August 2002, he became a member of the California based Planetary Society, to further his participation in and advocation of global space exploration.

Abdul is a member of the British Astronomical Association and his spare time astronomical interests include astrometric measurements of selected visual binary stars and their orbit deduction, proper motions of nearby stars, observation of deep sky objects and photometric tracking of variable stars. By way of a number of important articles published in 2004, he was the first to define an approximation of the cosmic night sky's total integrated brightness and put forward a hypothetical human interstellar spaceflight proposal for reaching the nearest star beyond our solar system, by relying on the safety of Oort cloud objects for possible mining/refuelling. The world's first asteroid interior space station concept as a viable alternative to synthetic orbital engineering constructs for a permanent in-space presence, was another notable piece.

His first piece of fictional writing "First Ark to Alpha Centauri" was a motion picture screenplay, which proved immensely popular in the world's online sci-fi communities, and was viewed across over 50 countries.

He was the first in scientific history to draw an imaginary sphere around the Sun of approximate radius 11,500 AUs (known as the "Ahad Radius" or the "Ahad Sphere of Solar Illuminance") which marks a point of equilibrium between total solar flux and the flux produced by the surrounding cosmic night sky. He was also the first to demonstrate analytically that a particulate ring system around planet Earth could not possibly remain stable in the complex Earth-Moon-Sun gravity interactive environment - quashing previous world opinions to the contrary.

He is happily married and lives with his family in Luton, England.

Contributors:

1. Garga Chatterjee: drgarga@vsnl.net