A team at IISc, Bangalore has successfully developed a novel technique to target and destroy cancer cells through multiple actions.

As a group of diseases, cancer affects over 7 lakh people every year in India alone and kills majority of those that are affected. Cancer occurs when normal cells go rogue – tweaking certain functions that makes it easier for the cancerous cells to multiply and invade normal tissues, thereby affecting the organs’ functions. The current treatment for cancer involves radiation, chemotherapy and occasionally surgery, all aimed at killing the cancerous cells. However, these therapies can, at times, be inaccurate, killing a large number of healthy cells too.

Developmental biologists are often required to study embryogenesis in different stages and acquire this information by imaging their samples at periodic intervals. These samples are commonly labeled with fluorescent dyes which emit a specific wavelength of light after excitation with a specific wavelength of light source, such as a laser. Though this is a universal practice, the dyes are often easily photobleached due to excessive exposure to light. This results in the loss of signal intensity and a high background (non-specific signals arising out of autofluorescence), which ultimately limits the quality of images.

A group of scientists at IISc have successfully designed a sensor to detect the presence of harmful bacterium Escherichia coli in food and drinking water.

IISc scientists have fabricated a unique device to detect UV which is cheaper, simple, sensitive and highly selective at the same time.