School of Life Sciences and Technology, Indonesia Wins XVI Fujio Cup Quiz in NCRM NICHE 2021; Rajalakshmi Engineering College, India, Emerge Runners.

Alfred Patisenah and Daisy Ramadhani of School of Life Sciences and Technology, Indonesia, won the prestigious Fujio Cup Quiz (FCQ), an active knowledge gaining academic event of NCRM NICHE 2021, on stem cells and regenerative medicine, in a fiercely fought contest among teams representing NIMHANS, Bangalore, India and Kasturba Medical College, the defending champions. Rajalakshmi Engineering College represented by Vigneshwar Ranjan and Vasanta Vaarshini Umapathi came runners in this contest across in three stages with assignments and online live quizzing, conducted since 2006, every October to commemorate the inaugural anniversary of Nichi in Centre for Regenerative Medicine.

The virtual event had lectures by Prof. Gary Levy, founder, Training program in regenerative medicine, University of Toronto (www.regenmedcanada.com) on lessons learnt during the pandemic and arenas of research for tackling future Covid-19 like viruses (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461357759), Prof. Kazutoshi Mori, Kyoto University, a Lasker prize awardee (https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3682) on unfolding protein response and endoplasmic reticulum stress (https://elifesciences.org/articles/60970) and Prof. Timothy Kieffer, University of British Columbia & CSO of Viacyte Inc., on encapsulated pancreatic islet cell transplantation for diabetes (https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2021.642152). Covid-19 related research were presented by Dr. Tomohiko Kisaka, Hiroshima University, Dr. Stanley Jeremiah, Yokohama City University (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765837), Dr. K. Raghavan, JAICARE, Madurai, India (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753332221010271), Dr. K. Ramesh Shankar, NHS Trust - Lincolnshire Partnership, London United Kingdom (https://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(21)00248-3/fulltext) and Dr Dedeepiya Devaprasad, who spoke on BREW-COCO method for early prediction of worsening outcome in Covid-19. Prof. Jurgen Hescheler, University of Cologne, Germany, Prof. Naoki Yamamoto, Emeritus Professor, National Centre for Global health and Medicine, Tokyo, Japan and Prof. Pushkala Subramaniam, TN MGR Medical University, India, moderated.

NCRM NICHE an inter-disciplinary event cum innovation platform, spearheading development of novel solutions for Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH or NAFLD: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.08.451700) and for managing neurodevelopmental disorders like Autism Spectrum Disorders (https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.28.21259619), has started attracting multinational investors. Enso Healthcare DMCC, Dubai, UAE, who have partnered with GN Corporation for this active knowledge gaining academic event, being a part of Enso group, a global conglomerate with diverse interests is envisaging to develop path breaking solutions through futuristic research for prevention and management of lifestyle illnesses and in the domains of anti-aging and longevity.