GNIPST BULLETIN 2012

1118-1177-4796-9849-7562-5062

TO GROW AS A CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN THE FIELD OF PHARMACEUTICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE

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28th December 2012

Volume No.: 21

Issue No.: 02

Vision

Contents

Message from GNIPST Letter to the Editor News Update Disease Outbreak News Health Awareness Forth Coming Events Drugs Update GNIPST Photo Gallery
For your comments/contribution OR

Campus News Students Section Editors Note Archive

For Back-Issues,
mailto:gnipstbulletin@gmail.com

1 EDITOR: Debabrata Ghosh Dastidar

GURU NANAK INSTITUTE OF PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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MESSAGE FROM GNIPST

All the members of GNIPST are proud to publish the 21st Volume of GNIPST BULLETIN. This bulletin has successfully completed its twenty months journey. We hope it has kept the readers updated of recent activities in pharmaceutical & biological sciences and also introduced them with the different activities of our esteemed institution. We are thankful to all of you for your great cooperation & support and are looking forward to the same in future.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR. NEWS UPDATE

A New Type of Nerve Cell Found in the Brain. (21 DECEMBER 2012)
An international team of scientists has identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans. Read more

Rebuilding Blood Vessels Through Gene Therapy (21

DECEMBER 2012)

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Diagnosed with severe coronary artery disease, a group of patients too ill for or not responding to other treatment options decided to take part in a clinical trial testing angiogenic gene therapy to help rebuild their damaged blood vessels. Read more

Understanding Cancer (23

Cell

Organization

to

Tackle

DECEMBER 2012)

Scientists have identified how cells know which way up they need to be. The discovery could help in the fight against cancer because in the early stages of the disease the cells become dis-organized.
Read more

New Class of Malaria Drugs Using Essential

Calcium Enzyme Developed (14

DECEMBER 2012)

Calpain, a calcium-regulated enzyme, is essential to a host of cellular processes, but can cause severe problems in its overactivated state, and has been implicated in several diseases. Researchers have developed a unique approach to calpain inhibition by mimicking a natural reaction with a synthesized molecule. Read more

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HEALTH AWARENESS

Climate Change and Health

Climate change Over the last 50 years, human activities particularly the burning of fossil fuels have released sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to trap additional heat in the lower atmosphere and affect the global climate. In the last 100 years, the world has warmed by approximately 0.75
0

C. Over the last 25 years, the rate of global warming has

accelerated, at over 0.18 0C per decade. Sea levels are rising, glaciers are melting and precipitation patterns are changing. Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent. What is the impact of climate change on health? Although global warming may bring some localized benefits, such as fewer winter deaths in temperate climates and increased food production in certain areas, the overall health effects of a changing climate are likely to be overwhelmingly negative. Climate change affects social determinants of health clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter.
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Extreme heat Extreme high air temperatures contribute directly to deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease, particularly among elderly people. In the heat wave of summer 2003 in Europe for example, more than 70 000 excess deaths were recorded. High temperatures also raise the levels of ozone and other pollutants in the air that exacerbate cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Urban air pollution causes about 1.2 million deaths every year. Pollen and other aeroallergen levels are also higher in extreme heat. These can trigger asthma, which affects around 300 million people. Ongoing temperature increases are expected to increase this burden. Natural disasters and variable rainfall patterns Globally, the number of reported weather-related natural disasters has more than tripled since the 1960. Every year, these disasters result in over 60 000 deaths, mainly in developing countries. Rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather events will destroy homes, medical facilities and other essential services. More than half of the world's population lives within 60 km of the sea. People may be forced to move, which in turn heightens the risk of
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a range of health effects, from mental disorders to communicable diseases. Increasingly variable rainfall patterns are likely to affect the supply of fresh water. A lack of safe water can compromise hygiene and increase the risk of diarrhoeal disease, which kills 2.2 million people every year. In extreme cases, water scarcity leads to drought and famine. By the 2090, climate change is likely to widen the area affected by drought, double the frequency of extreme droughts and increase their average duration six-fold3. Floods are also increasing in frequency and intensity. Floods contaminate freshwater supplies, heighten the risk of water-borne diseases, and create breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes. They also cause drownings and physical injuries, damage homes and disrupt the supply of medical and health services. Rising temperatures and variable precipitation are likely to decrease the production of staple foods in many of the poorest regions by up to 50% by 2020 in some African countries4. This will increase the prevalence of malnutrition and undernutrition, which currently cause 3.5 million deaths every year. Patterns of infection

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Climatic conditions strongly affect water-borne diseases and diseases transmitted through insects, snails or other cold blooded animals. Changes in climate are likely to lengthen the transmission seasons of important vector-borne diseases and to alter their geographic range. For example, climate change is projected to widen significantly the area of China where the snail-borne disease schistosomiasis occurs. Malaria is strongly influenced by climate. Transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes, malaria kills almost 1 million people every year mainly African children under five years old. The Aedes mosquito vector of dengue is also highly sensitive to climate conditions. Studies suggest that climate change could expose an additional 2 billion people to dengue transmission by the 2080. Measuring the health effects Measuring the health effects from climate change can only be very approximate. Nevertheless, a WHO assessment, taking into account only a subset of the possible health impacts, concluded that the modest warming that has occurred since the 1970s was already causing over 140 000 excess deaths annually by the year 2004.

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Who is at risk? All populations will be affected by climate change, but some are more vulnerable than others. People living in small island developing states and other coastal regions, megacities, and mountainous and polar regions are particularly vulnerable. Children in particular, children living in poor countries are among the most vulnerable to the resulting health risks and will be exposed longer to the health consequences. The health effects are also expected to be more severe for elderly people and people with infirmities or pre-existing medical conditions. Areas with weak health infrastructure mostly in developing countries will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond.

DISEASE OUTBREAK NEWS

FORTHCOMING EVENTS
IPSCON-2012 45th Annual Conference of Indian Pharmacological Society and International Conference on 'Navigating Pharmacology towards Safe and Effective Therapy'
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Dates

04 Jan 2013 07 Jan 2013

Location: Nagpur, Maharashtra, India. Details.

DRUGS UPDATES
FDA

approves

new

orphan

drug

for

rare

cholesterol disorder (26 DECEMBER 2012)

The U.S. FDA approved Juxtapid (lomitapide) to reduce lowdensity lipoprotein in (LDL) cholesterol, with total cholesterol, familial apolipoprotein B, and non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol patients homozygous hypercholesterolemia (HoFH). Juxtapid is intended for use in combination with a low fat diet and other lipid-lowering treatments. Read more

FDA approves Eliquis to reduce the risk of stroke, blood clots in patients. (28 DECEMBER 2012)
The U.S. FDA approved the anti-clotting drug Eliquis (apixaban), an oral tablet used to reduce the risk of stroke and dangerous blood clots (systemic embolism) in patients with atrial fibrillation that is not caused by a heart valve problem. Read more

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CAMPUS NEWS
Two of our faculties Dr. Prerona Saha and Dr. Sriporna Kundu Sen were awarded Ph.D (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) in the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kol-32 in the annual convocation organized on 24th December, 2012.

STUDENTS SECTION
WHO CAN ANS WER FIRS T???

() Which parasite was named after physician Otto Wucherer and parasitologist Joseph

Bancroft? () Which is considered as World Mosquito Day?

Answer of Previous Issue Question:

A) Chess B) Indian Air force

Send your thoughts/ Quiz/Puzzles/games/writeups or any other contributions for Students Section & answers of this Section at EDITORS NOTE I am very happy to publish the 2nd issue of 21st Volume of GNIPST BULLETIN. It is my great pleasure to introduce you to the newly
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gnipstbulletin@gmail.com

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launched facebook account GNIPST bulletin. You are cordially invited to add this account to your friend list. The current issues will also be directly available on facebook. I would like to convey my thanks to all the GNIPST members and the readers for their valuable comments, encouragement& supports. Special thanks to Dr. Prerona Saha for her advice; Mr. Soumya Bhattacharya, for his contribution in students section. It would be my great pleasure to receive the contributions, suggestions & feedback from your desk for further upliftment of this deliberation GNIPST BULLETIN.

ARCHIVE The general body meeting of APTI, Bengal Branch has been conducted at GNIPST on 15th June, 2012. The programme started with a nice presentation by Dr. Pulok Kr. Mukherjee, School of Natural Products, JU on the skill to write a good manuscript for publication in impact journals. It was followed by nearly two hour long discussion among more than thirty participants on different aspects of pharmacy education. Five nonmember participants applied for membership on that very day. GNIPST is now approved by AICTE and affiliated to WBUT for conducting the two years post graduate course (M.Pharm) in

PHARMACOLOGY. The approved number of seat is 18.

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The number of seats in B.Pharm. has been increased from 60 to 120. 2nd World Congress on Ga-68 (Generators and Novel Radiopharmaceuticals), Molecular Imaging (PET/CT), Targeted Radionuclide Therapy, and Dosimetry (SWC-2013) : On the Way to Personalized Medicine Dates 28 Feb 2013 02 Mar 2013 Location: Chandigarh, India. Details.

5-Days Hands-on Workshop on Molecular Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. 7thto 11th January 2013, Pune, Maharashtra, India. Details. IAMLE- 2013 4th International Conference on Medical Negligence and litigation in Medical Practice, and 4th International Conference on Recent Advances in Forensic Sciences, Forensic Medicine & Toxicology. Date: 25 Jan 2013 27 Jan 2013, Location: Kovalam, Thiruvanthapuram, India. Details. 64thIndian Pharmaceutical Congress (IPC) will be held from

December 6th to 9 th, 2012 , at Chennai. The four-day event will be

organized by the Association of Pharmacy Teachers of India (APTI).

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AICTE has sanctioned a release of grant under Research Promotion Scheme (RPS) during the financial year 201213 to GNIPST as per the details below: a. Beneficiary Institution: Guru Nanak Institution of Pharmaceutical Science & Technology. b. Principal Investigator: Dr. Lopamudra Dutta. c. Grant-in-aid sanctioned: Rs. 16,25000/- only d. Approved duration: 3 years e. Title of the project: Screening and identification of potential medicinal plant of Purulia & Bankura districts of West Bengal with respect to diseases such as diabetes, rheumatism, Jaundice, hypertension and developing biotechnological tools for enhancing bioactive molecules in these plant. Special classes on Communication Skills, G.D. and Interview will commence from 3rd week of January 2013 for the students of this Institute. Interested students are required to contact the undersigned for enrolment either personally or by e-mail. Dr. Lopamudra Datta E-mail: info.gnipst@jisgroup.org gnipstbulletin@gmail.com

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