EFFECTIVE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION BY EDUCATING MASSES ABOUT GOVERNMENT PROGAMS AND SCHEMES

EFFECTIVE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION BY EDUCATING MASSES ABOUT GOVERNMENT PROGAMS AND SCHEMES

AUTHOR: ALPANA SAHA

CO-AUTHOR: DR IRFANA BEGUM AND NAVEET GUPTA

AFFILIATION: SUB-EDITOR Department of Biotechnology Communication Cell, Vigyan Prasar.

POSTAL ADDRESS: C-24, Qutub Institutional Area, Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi

ELECTRONIC ADDRESS: alpana@vigyanprasar.gov.in and alpanarim@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Starting with a brief overview of the two important departments of the Ministry of Science and Technology, that is, Vigyan Prasar (VP) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
Vigyan Prasar an autonomous body was established by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, in the year 1989 to take up large-scale science popularization activities. Publications brought out so far have covered diverse areas like Indian Scientific Heritage, Housing, Natural science, Health, scientific education and so on. They have also reprinted several classics and a number of titles that pay a major role in scientific temperament building.
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is an Indian government department, within the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialization in the field of modern biology in India. It was set up in 1986.
Through several research and development projects, demonstrations, grants and creation of infrastructural facilities a clear visible impact of this field has been seen. The department has made significant achievements in the growth and application of biotechnology in the broad areas of agriculture, health care, animal sciences, environment, and industry. The proven technologies at the laboratory level have been scaled up and demonstrated in field.
Patenting of innovations, technology transfer to industries and close interaction with them have given a new direction to biotechnology research in India. Initiatives have been taken to promote transgenic research in plants with emphasis on pest and disease resistance, nutritional quality, silk-worm genome analysis and so on.
On the contrary, molecular biology of human genetic disorders, brain research, plant genome research, development, validation and commercialization of diagnostic kits and vaccines for communicable diseases, food biotechnology, biodiversity conservation, and bioprospecting, setting up of micropropagation parks and biotechnology based development for SC/ST, rural areas, women and for different States. Organization's mandate and the centers of excellence that it has set up to achieve this goal are:

• Promote large scale use of Biotechnology
• Support manufacturing in Biopharmaceutical Industry
• Responsibility for Autonomous Institutions
• Promote University and Industry Interaction
• Identify and Set up Centres of Excellence
• Integrated Programme for Human Resource Development
• To serve as Nodal Point for specific International Collaborations
• Establishment of Infrastructure Facilities
• Evolve Bio Safety Guidelines, manufacture and application of cell based vaccines
• Serve as nodal point for the collection and dissemination of information relating to biotechnology

By the above described good works done by the two organizations it is necessary to know the details of work done by these organizations so that here authors just want to express that there are a lot of positive work in scientific field carried out through ministry of Science and Technology. So, the effective communication of research, programs, and schemes carried out by these departments and their counterparts should be incepted. With this objective VP-DBT communication cell developed in the year 2013 with the important aims and objectives of modern bioscience communication. One of the primary objectives of the cell is to make the website of DBT interactive. Furthermore, the cell will work together to make the site user friendly, manage implementation of words, to know people the help granted to human being through biotechnology, it will also be source of information flow to media. In sum the new website will be a collation of information. Adding that the work needs to be of world class, adhere to international standards, corrective action will be taken immediately and verification and certification process will be done as soon as possible.

Results of effective communication of the two departments work are as follows:

Make people aware of the cheap vaccines available in the country through blog uploads (DBT)

Communicate about first aid and other health related facilities through EduSat telecast (VP)

Workshop on infectious diseases and funding for research work in combating infectious diseases (NII)

Educating people about good clinical practices (ICGEB)

Other scientific communication to the masses through print magazines like Dreams (VP)

Conduction of seminar on scientific temper (VP)

KEYWORDS: Department of Biotechnology, EduSAT, Science Communication, Scientific temper, Vigyan Prasar

INTRODUCTION:

Before discussing good science communication, it would first befit to define what is meant by – both by science and communication as well as science communication as a whole.
So, good communication is merely being clear-spoken, so that messenger’s message is obvious.
Authors believe all of these principles are useful in communication, however, I would take it one step further and say that good communication is built on passion and dedication – passion for your topic and dedication to making it interesting and relevant to those to whom we are trying to convey it. There are myriad ways of communicating a message, but only people with the correct goals will actually get their message across – goals such as clarity, relevance, and decent support and explanation.
One may have the most fascinating information in the world to share but without paying attention to how you’re saying it, you may not reach a single soul. Without engaging with a wider audience science becomes insular and myopic, and for that reason alone it is valuable for scientists and science writers to continually strive to find the best ways to communicate their passions and interests to the wider world around them.
In aiming the entire described target that is explained it is important to use all the tools of mass communication to reach the masses.
Large scale promotion of scientific work the print, electronic, and social media is being targeted to be utilized to the optimum level.

DISCUSSION AND ELABORATION

MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF THE CHEAP VACCINES AVAILABLE IN THE COUNTRY THROUGH BLOG UPLOADS (DBT)

Rotavirus, killer germ of children worldwide takes the life of about four lakhs children every year. The prevention of this deadly disease is though administration of a vaccine, which until today has been at prohibitive cost making it unavailable for poor and underdeveloped nations, catalyzed by DBT, the Rotavac vaccine developed through public–private partnership is available at a fraction of the cost making it possible for universal access.
Rotavirus is a double-stranded RNA virus. It belongs to Reoviridae family. The mode of transmission of this virus is fecal. The damage it causes to the neonates is the destruction of intestinal cell. The diseases are basically gastrointestinal infection and stomach flu.

PAIN TAKEN BY PAST SCHOLARS TO COME TO THE PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Globally rotavirus kills four and half lakh infants every year. In India itself one lakh children die per year with diarrhoea and dehydration.
In India, Rotavac (trade name) has been developed in public–private partnership. Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India (public partner) and Bharat Biotech (private partner) had worked in closed collaboration for around last two decades to achieve this success.
The vaccine has successfully completed all three stages of clinical trials and is available for sale in the market. Still the vaccine is awaiting clearance from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).

The cost of our indigenous vaccine is around fifty rupees, which is 1/20 times cheaper than the international vaccines. According to the updates given by Mr Bhan (former secretary DBT) to Times of India (TOI) “There is no side-effect or safety issue.” The vaccine could save the lives of thousands of children each year in India.

This low-price vaccine will not only help Indian citizens but also our low-income neighbouring countries.

The health experts throughout the globe say that the Rotavirus is one of the deadly viruses for death of children in the world.

This development was even appreciated by Bill Gates the corporate giant in a briefing to Business Today on 14^th May 2013. "This public–private partnership is an exemplary model of how to develop affordable technologies to save lives," Bill Gates.

In the next six months the clearance job will be probably done by DCGI.

According to the reports given by British Broadcasting (BBC) the similar vaccines produced by leading Pharmacological organisation like; Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, cost around one thousand rupees.

"This is an important scientific breakthrough against rotavirus infections, the most severe and lethal cause of childhood diarrhoea, responsible for approximately 100,000 deaths of small children in India each year," India's Department of Biotechnology official said.

According to the research conducted by Dr. Roger I Glass and co-worker in the year 2006, Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe diarrhoea in children worldwide and diarrhoeal deaths in children in developing countries. Two live oral rotavirus vaccines have been licensed in many countries; one is derived from an attenuated human strain of rotavirus and the other combines five bovine-human reassortant strains. Each vaccine has proven highly effective in preventing severe rotavirus diarrhoea in children and safe from the possible complication of intussusceptions (RI Glass et al, Rotavirus vaccines: current prospects and future challenges, The Lancet 368; 9532: 323–332, 2006).
Rotavirus strains from 964 faecal specimens collected from children at around ten United States hospital laboratories (from Nov 1997 to March 1998) and from samples collected at 12 laboratories (from Nov 1998 to March 1999) were typed for G and P proteins. Serotype G1 was the predominant serotype in 1997–1998 (88%), followed by G2 (6.2%), G9 (3.3%), and G3 (1.5%). This pattern was similar to that seen in 1998–1999: G1 (79%), G2 (15%), G9 (3.0%), G4 (1.6%), and G3 (0.3%) (DD Griffin et al, Surveillance of rotavirus strains in the United States: identification of unusual strains, J Clin Microbiol 38; 7: 2784–2787, 2000).
The Indian rotavirus vaccine, Rotavac, was developed this year. If approved by the DCGI, it would be available at Rs. 54 per dose, more affordable than the two vaccines now available in the retail chemist shop costing more than Rs. 1,000 per dose.

The blog on the rotavirus indigenous vaccine was uploaded by Vigyan Prasar to promote vaccination availability by the government of India.

Communicate about first aid and other health related facilities through EduSat telecast (VP)

The EduSAT project members in the Vigyan Prasar are working for promotion of education, health care, and first aid awareness in the nation. Science communications, science writing programmes are carried through the EduSAT network. EduSAT network is a Satellite base tele-communication programmes for the country wide satellite interactive terminals (SITs).
First aid awareness programme was a great success as the programme reached people in remote areas of the country and it was an on demand telecast.
Other disease awareness programmes like dengue, malaria, cancer and malnutrition was also carried out.

Workshop on infectious diseases and funding for research work in combating infectious diseases (NII)

Indo-German Workshop on Chemical Biology of Infectious Diseases at NII

It’s a two day workshop on Chemical Biology from 20^th to 21^st of January, 2014.

On 20^th January session was divided into three sessions. After each presentation 5 minutes discussion was also carried out.

Dr Alexander Bird talked on regulation of microtubule networks. He added that different tags were used to identify the transgenic proteins. His presentation also answered how microtubule tip regulate neuronal morphogenesis. The second speaker of this session was Dr Devinder Sehgal talked on the findings of his laboratory and its action plans. Dr Sehgal informed that his lab constantly worked to find how Streptococcus pneumoniae causes disease. Identification and characterization of virulence factors was main target of his findings. The vaccine potential of the protein SP_0845 was evaluated. The programme of Dr Sehgal was funded by DBT. His lecture was followed by lecture by two eminent ladies form Institute of Microbial Technology Chandigarh and National Institute of Immunology (NII). They were Dr TNC Ramya and Dr Kanwal J Kaur. Dr Ramya explained in details about lectins. She said that F-type lectins are found both in eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Dr Kanwal J Kaur worked on investigating the effect of sugars on the function of anti-microbial proteins. The sugars of anti-microbial activity are generally alpha-linked in according to her presentation.

Even brainstorming sessions on some serious infectious diseases like Tuberculosis, mycobacteria, bacterial community and mycobacteria-driven signals were discussed.

All together four important lecture took place in the fourth session, which took place on 21 January 2014. The first lecture of the session was on “Challenges and solutions for glycoproteomics,” which was delivered by Dr Daniel Kolarich of Max-Planck Institute (MPI). He was succeeded by Dr Pushkar Sharma of National institute of Immunology (NII) who took a take on signaling and trafficking in Malaria Parasite. Dr Paushali Mukherjee talked on Plasmodium falciparum. Intricate signaling by intracellular Salmonella to maintain the niche: an essential virulence strategy was discussed by Dr Dipshikah of IISc.

Session 5 was chaired by Dr Seyed Hasnain. This session was a lengthy session as all had detailed presentation slides of the lab samples. The speakers of the session were Dr Erdmann Rapp, Dr Saroj Mishra, Dr Ponnusamy Babu and Dr Praveen Vemula. Dr Ponnusamy discussed on glycan and its role in regeneration. The organism he selected for his experiment was Hydra and the regeneration theory was effectively explained through it. Dr Vemula of InStem explained on skin allergies through metallic exposure and its medicinal aspects. The presentation was an interesting presentation.

The 6^th and the last session of the day was presided by Dr Alex Sigal and the speakers of the session were Dr Akhil, Dr Navin, Dr Amulya and Dr Chakkumkal. The session ended on an interesting note by Dr Panda that the technology is effective only when it reaches those who need it.

The two-day program provided a brief glance of national level programs carried out by DBT and DST funding.

EDUCATING PEOPLE ABOUT GOOD CLINICAL PRACTICES (ICGEB)

There was a two days’ workshop (14-15 February 2014) held at ICGEB New Delhi on “Basics of Good Clinical Practice.” The objective of the workshop was to enable the participant understand the basics of good clinical practice (GCP) so that they can ensure compliance and give public an assurance the rights, safety and well-being of human participants involved in research are well protected.

Outcome of the workshop was very positive. The results derived from the workshop cum training programme positivity can be summed up into six bold categories. Firstly there should be authenticated Indian regulations that govern human research. Secondly, the human participated in the research work should be protected. Protection of rights, safety and welfare of the participant is a must. Thirdly, the data compilation should be of high quality, reliable and integrated. Fourthly, there should be set standards and guidelines for the conduct of clinical research. Fifthly, training of good clinical practice results with the combination of good ethics and good quality data assemblage. Lastly, identification of right and wrong in Pharmaceutical Industry is a must.

When people follow good clinical practices there are lot of beneficial outcome of this. The outcome can benefit a wide spectrum of professionals and citizens throughout the society. The profiting people because of this are primarily: clinical investigators, clinical research personnel from government institutions and agencies, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Some others who can also derive advantages are contract research organization, central laboratory, research sites, ethics committee, auditors and media.

Other scientific communication to the masses through print and electronic subscription like Dreams (VP)

“Dream 2047”/VIPNET news is a collection of all the popular science articles and programmes published in Vigyan Prasar’s monthly newsletter-cum-popular Science  magazine during the period 1998-till date. CD-ROM is a collection of scientific news, views as well as programmes. It is a popular version of scientific popularization. VP has 300 titles of popular science books.

Conduction of seminar on scientific temper (VP)

Vigyan Prasar conducts every year a seminar on scientific temper to create an awareness of scientific thinking in the nation and this has helped the nation a lot. This year seminar held on 21-22 February 2014 was also a huge success. The outcomes of the seminar were as follows:

1. Science should not be a crisis ridden system by lacking in positive convergence.
2. A science based society uses methodology of science and formulated knowledge as guiding principles. Science as a value – neutral body is critical. The role of science is determined by culture milieu.

3        Poverty and developmental priorities may hinder diffusion of Science and Technology.

4        S & T must listen to people and not take a high pedestal. Listen to the opponents. This listening is a hallmark of good science. Logic and evidence are critical. Recognize shortfalls on facts with logic and respect. Art and Culture are equally enriching.

5    Technology & science reinforce each other.

6    Funds and encouragement are critical to sustain action.

7    “Little experimentation” should commence from schools.

8    Science is global and goes beyond globalization.

9    Distinguish science from technology & spirituality. Science is about provisionalism and can be challenged constantly. Gaining new knowledge is the essence of science. “Don’t take any body’s word for it”. Base on practical understanding.

10    Open source drug discovery is an example of open source biology learning. Limited access to license is a challenge for large scale public benefit.

11    This signifies new work order as a robust learning and outreach tool for ST also. Local language adaptation is also possible through a free soft ware platform to break (inadvertent) monopolization of knowledge.

12    Scientists follow scientific methods at work and not necessarily in their lives so it was emphasized that this should be developed.

13    India has not focused on deriving optimal benefits of science for quality of life.

CONCLUSION

Understand principles of science through their application in daily life, of the people residing in the nation.

Fun with science including sky watching, nature, science activity camps, root and shoot project, experiments with solid waste and many more such activities for promotion of science interest among children, scholars as well as general masses.

Among the conventional modes of mass communication, radio, television, social media, and books are the most potent medium to reach out to largest number of target groups with information and messages concerning their lives and environment. Considering the coverage of the print materials and audio visual items, which are more than 80% of the geographical area and population of the country, the Ministry has decided to produce and broadcast through Visual Publicity periodic programmes conducted by audio visual division of Vigyan Prasar and DBT.

Governments strives to update or prepare strategies aimed at integrating environment and development as a cross-cutting issue into education at all levels in coming years. This should be done in cooperation with all sectors of society. The strategies should set out policies and activities, and identify needs, cost, means and schedules for their implementation, evaluation and review. A thorough review of curricula should be undertaken to ensure a multidisciplinary approach, with environment and development issues and their socio-cultural and demographic aspects and linkages. Due respect should be given to community-defined needs and diverse knowledge systems, including science, cultural and social sensitivities.

REFERENCE

"DBT - Department of Biotechnology". Dbtindia.nic.in. Retrieved 2010-09-01. (Accessed on 25/02/2014)

DD Griffin et al, Surveillance of rotavirus strains in the United States: identification of unusual strains, J Clin Microbiol 38; 7: 2784–2787, 2000

http://dst.gov.in/scientific-programme/s-t_ncstc.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Biotechnology (Accessed on 25/02/2014)

http://www.archive.india.gov.in/sectors/environment/index.php?id=10

http://www.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=52&ArticleID=4415&l=en

http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in (Accessed on 25/02/2014)

http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/publication/vp_cd.asp (Accessed on 26/02/2014)

Indranil Manna, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur & Indian National Academy of Engineering, Posted on February 9, 2012 by erindubitably (Accessed on 26/02/2014)

RI Glass et al, Rotavirus vaccines: current prospects and future challenges, The Lancet 368; 9532: 323–332, 2006