Kris Gopalakrishnan: Kris Gopalakrishnan’ trust to give Indian Institute of Science Rs 450 crore for brain research | Bengaluru News – Times of India

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BENGALURU: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has signed a fresh MoU with Pratiksha Trust – established by Infosys co-founder and philanthropist Kris Gopalakrishnan and wife Sudha – to get Rs 450 crore (around $55 million) over the next 10 years for brain research.
The Pratiksha Trust’s MoU with IISc and its Centre for Brain Research (CBR) is to accelerate breakthrough discoveries and translational research on neurodegenerative diseases of the elderly population. IISc said the Trust had, in 2014, helped set up this centre & has been supporting R&D activities, helping to create world-class infrastructure in CBR.
The Trust had funded the construction of a building for CBR. The fresh MoU is an extension of this support for securing the future of CBR and strengthening its long-term studies on the ageing brain. In a parallel initiative, the Trust will support high-risk-high-reward interdisciplinary extramural projects in ageing brain research.
Kris Gopalakrishnan said: “By funding this centre, with the help of IISc, we’re working towards creating and sustaining a globally recognised, research and innovation hub that will be at the cutting edge of research on the human brain.”
He added that the Trust was committed to supporting the centre in its mission to reduce the pain, agony, and burden of an important part of our society: the elderly population and wished it becomes the world’s leading centre for ageing brain research by 2030.
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 ageing-related neurodegenerative diseases. CBR is uniquely positioned to take on the challenge of tackling this impending healthcare and socioeconomic crisis.”
Large study in Bengaluru & Kolar
The Centre for Brain Research (CBR) has completed four years of two studies to track the ageing brain over a 15-20-year period in individuals older than 45 years of age – one for a rural cohort (in Srinivasapura taluk of Kolar district) with 10,000 volunteers, and the other for an urban cohort (in and around Bengaluru) with 1,000 volunteers.
“In the rural cohort, 5,400 volunteers have been recruited and 6,600 multi-modal assessments – both baseline and yearly follow-ups – have been completed. The corresponding figures for the urban cohort (a project supported by the Tata Trusts) are 1,100 recruitments and 2,300 assessments,” IISc said.

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