Home is where research is: 3 Indians stay back in Italy
| Date :04-Apr-2020 |
By Zafri Mudasser Nofil :
NEW DELHI,
Upadhyaya has no regrets and Biswas, a PhD scholar and a computational biologist, doesn’t either.
THREE Indians pursuing academic careers in Italy stayed back when COVID-19 was sweeping across the European nation - one to complete his doctorate, the second for coronavirus related research and the third to see how the country with the world’s second-best healthcare facilities tackles the pandemic. All three are from Assam and have been staying in Italy for nearly four years.
They are among the few Indians who did not return home when the Indian Government made arrangements to bring them from the country, among the worst affected with over 13,000 deaths and more than 1,10,000 cases. On March 24, as India began a 21-day lockdown to curtail the spread of the virus, Prabin Upadhyaya was awarded his doctorate online. The biologist did his PhD in neurosciences and imaging from the Gabriele d’Annunzio University in Chieti city in central Italy’s Abruzzo region.
“I completed my doctorate, with an additional title of PhD Europeaus and was given ‘Excellent’ grade. Currently, I am looking for a post doctoral position for further research,” Upadhyaya told PTI from Chieti. “When the flights to India were arranged, there was some work left for my PhD degree. So I decided to stay back till I finish,” said Upadhyaya, who belongs to Jagun in Assam’s Tinsukia district and has been under home quarantine for the past 20 days. Upadhyaya has no regrets and Akash Deep Biswas, a PhD scholar of Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and a computational biologist, doesn’t either.
Biswas is currently working on finding a molecule which can inhibit the CoV-2 main protease. “I had started working on the CoV-2 protease from mid February and wasn’t interested in leaving this country under any circumstances because of my work demands,” he said from Pisa.
His research article on computational approach based on molecular dynamics simulation to study the dependence of the protein hydration-shell density on the size of the protein molecule, which includes 17 proteins besides CoV-2 main protease, was published on March 23 by the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. According to Biswas, who belongs to Tezpur, the reason for the many positive cases and deaths in Italy is the high average age of 45.5 years. “A huge number of people are either very young or very old. These two groups of people are very vulnerable to COVID-19 as their immune system is low compared to others,” he said.