25 Aug 2015|Noida | F3 Seminar Hall
A High Level Delegation from two Universities of Australia visit Amity
Amity University has forged a partnership with two Universities of Australia and to carry forward the discussions, a high level delegation from the two Australian Universities visited Amity University Campus Sector 125 Noida.
The delegation comprised of Professor Ross Barnard, Director of the University of Queensland Biotechnology Program; Associate Professor Mikael Boden, Director of the University of Bioinformatics Program, who delivered a guest lecture and Prof. Martin Bean CBE, Vice Chancellor & President, RMIT University,Australia who discussed on various areas of potential collaboration.
Addressing the gathering, Prof. Martin Bean commended Amity for its E- Learning programmes and said that world needs access to reach people in order to provide scale quality education for mutual development and Amity University has created that bridge with online education that reaches to different nooks and corners across the globe. He appreciated Amity for its high quality investment on research and innovations which has resulted in major scientific and technological breakthroughs. Presenting a brief on RMIT University, Prof. Bean said that RMIT is a University of Technology and Design which believes in providing unique talent to students through learning. He emphasized that Amity and RMIT has similar vision to provide global education to students. Prof. Beanexpressed his hope for a mutually productive collaboration on potential areas.
Elucidating on the spectrum of Antibody Engineering, Prof Ross Barnard said that before the discovery of Monoclonal Antibodies, the therapeutic applications of antibodies were limited. However, the Monoclonal Antibodies are expensive, time consuming and majorly taken as foreign molecules by human immune system during diagnosis. He elaborated that a major application of Antibody Engineering was the possibility to create Chimeric Antibodies which are 70% human can be used as therapeutic drugs and has been tested for diagnose of scrub typhus disease.Prof. Barnard outlined that Antibodies structure differ in different species,hence there has been a research on making mouse antibodies more humans friendly. He further added that Antibody Engineering has decreased the immunogenic mouse derived sequence by humanizing the sequence and creating antibody fragmants to be ideal reagents for imaging and therapy.
Prof Mikael Boden delivered the lecture on“Reconstructing ancestral sequence to explain and engineer Biological Diversity”. Prof Boden explained that Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction have emerged as important tools for examining the trajectory of molecular sequence evolution and testing hypotheses about the functional evolution of ancient genes. He said that the mainstay of bioinformatics in rich theory, algorithms and many applications. Hi explained that to understand the sequence, humans should imitate nature and through this people can understand the basis to nature’s outcomes and re-purpose its starting material.
Welcoming the guests, Dr. Gurinder Singh, Additional Group Vice Chancellor, Amity briefed them about the history and achievements of Amity Education Group and said that Amity is reckoned as the largest group of education in India with 8 Universities, 150 Institutions, International campuses, Schools and Pre-schools. He added that the philosophy of Amity is to blend modern education with rich culture and traditions. He remarked that QS has ranked Amity University’s Distance Learning Programmes amongst the top worldwide. He also mentioned that on the lines of PM’s Initiative on Skill Development, Amity has launched Diploma Courses in Skill Development which aim at nation building through skilling India’s Youth. Dr. Singh proposed on various areas of collaboration with RMIT including Joint Campus establishment, Joint Consultation Programmes, Joint Workshop in area of Research, Joint PhDs and Internship Programmes.
During the visit, the delegation was taken for a campus round wherein they visited various laboratories, Amity Innovation Incubator and Communication Studios. The delegation appreciated the infrastructure, faculty and research work carried out at Amity.