KalingaTV News Network
Bhubaneswar: Nobel Laureate Prof. Erwin Neher delivered JBS Haldane Lecture at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) University here on Monday.
Prof. Erwin Neher delivered the lecture on the topic ‘Ion Channels: Their Discovery and Their Role in Biomedicine and Pharmacology’.
The Nobel Laureate explained the ‘Patch Clamp technique’ that he had developed along with his colleague Prof. Bert Sakmann to study ionic currents in individual isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane. The technique revolutionized the study of ion channels – a kind of pore-forming proteins located in cell membranes that facilitate the passage of ions into and out of the cell and affect the human physiology.
Patch clamp technique allows the measurement of incredibly small electrical currents (amounting to a picoampere) that pass through a single ion channel and in the screening and safety evaluation of drugs that are targeted to ion channels in a range of disorders including pain, epilepsy, depression, stroke, bipolar disorder, arrhythmia, hypertension, autoimmune disorders, cystic fibrosis and diabetes, etc.
The two German scientists were awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology (Medicine) in 1991 for this significant discovery.
On the occasion, Dr. Achyuta Samanta, founder, KIIT & KISS conferred Prof. Erwin Neher with the JBS Haldane Award-2017 in the presence of Prof. H. K. Mohanty, VC, KIIT University and other dignitaries.
KIIT School of Biotechnology has been organizing the Lecture Series in honour of JBS Haldane, a celebrated scientist, since 2013.
Ms Kalinga