IIT Madras Launches New Centre to Map Human Brains, Students to be Trained on Brain Data

The IIT Madras centre aims to become a global centre for human brain research with transformative impact in science and medicine

IIT Madras has launched the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre to power an ambitious Global Project to map the human brain at the cellular and connectivity levels, with a focus on high-resolution brain imaging. The Centre aims to become a world-renowned research centre, generating unprecedented human brain data, scientific output and technology tools.

Congratulating the Researchers, Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “The Brain Research Centre is a great case study which proves that technology can contribute to medicine and solve societal problems. The Centre will make deep in-roads in collecting data for brain research.”

It was inaugurated on 19 March 2022 in the presence of Prof K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus Kris Gopalakrishnan, Shrimati Sudha Gopalakrishnan, and Prof Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam of IIT Madras, who will be heading this Centre.

Addressing the inaugural event, Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, said: “The combination of IIT Madras, which has the expertise in science and data analysis, with medicine is going to be revolutionary. Going forward, we have an extraordinary problem in Neuroscience, i.e. on the functioning of human brain. We are at an earlier stage in our understanding of the human brain functioning. The IIT Madras brain centre will help in solving complex issues that will benefit the world.”

Separately, Prof K VijayRaghavan also inaugurated the AquaMAP Centre for Water Management and Policy during his visit to the IIT Madras campus in the presence of Prof Ligy Philip, Dean (Planning), IIT Madras, and Principal Coordinator of the Centre and Alumni Donors Dr Parasuram Balasubramanian and Krishnan Narayanan. IIT Madras plans to train hundreds of undergraduate and postgraduate students at this Centre in neuroscience and computing, machine learning techniques on cutting-edge brain data.

Further, Prof K VijayRaghavan said, “The dynamic leadership of IIT Madras has shown the ability to herd different kinds of complex talent together. The IIT Madras Research Park is an example and today every institution wants to copy the model.”

The Centre is supported by Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan and Mrs. Sudha Gopalakrishnan. Speaking on the occasion, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Alumnus of IIT Madras, said: “Entrepreneurship and development in science and technology are important for the nation’s growth. While there have been great strides in supporting entrepreneurship, there is a need for more support to foster world-class research in India. Scientists and engineers play an important role in feeding the knowledge economy of the country. The country has the right talent, resource and opportunity in leading some areas globally. ”

The first ongoing project of the Centre titled ‘Computational and Experimental Platform for High-Resolution Terapixel Imaging of ex-vivo Human Brains’ for high-throughput light microscopic imaging of whole human brains is supported by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. Through this project, the Centre has developed a high-throughput histology pipeline that processes whole human brains into high-resolution digital images.

Using this technology platform, the Centre is imaging post-mortem human brains of different types and ages. The Centre has already acquired whole brain serial-section cell-resolution volumes of three developing brains to date. These unique first-in-class data sets that provide a high-resolution view of developing brains will be released in the near future.

Dr. George Varghese, Professor, CMC Vellore, said, “The Brain Research Centre has a huge potential in solving some of the major medical issues. The research work undertaken at the Centre will help in bringing different outcomes for patients. This unusual combination of science and technology with medicine is the way to go forward."