js_composer domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home3/vacatio2/public_html/medgatetoday/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6260Guwahati, Assam – Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati) have developed E-Eye, a portable optical sensing device designed to rapidly detect multiple toxicants in water and other environmental, biological and food samples. The low-cost technology enables on-site water-quality testing without dependence on expensive laboratory equipment, with the potential to strengthen monitoring in rural and remote areas where conventional testing is difficult to access.
E-Eye operates on optical sensing principles, triggering a chemical reaction that produces a coloured compound whose intensity corresponds to the concentration of the targeted toxicant. The device converts this colour intensity into a digital reading. According to the research team, the system can detect arsenic, lead, iron, chromium, fluoride and Escherichia coli bacteria, with results found comparable to those from conventional UV-Visible spectroscopy and Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) during laboratory testing.
The device has been developed at an approximate unit cost of ₹3,500, with an estimated per-sample testing cost of around ₹2. Researchers have validated the technology across more than 2,700 samples, recording accurate results throughout. Beyond water, E-Eye’s applications extend to environmental and biological samples, as well as vegetables, food products, tea, herbal products, soil and milk.
The innovation arrives amid rising concern over the contamination of water sources by heavy metals, chemicals and disease-causing microorganisms. By enabling testing directly at the source, E-Eye could support faster identification of contamination, helping authorities and industries take timely corrective action. The device also supports wireless data transmission, allowing recorded information to be shared with water-treatment facilities and enabling digital monitoring at scale.
The research underpinning E-Eye has been published in the IEEE Sensors Journal. The team is now advancing toward commercialisation through ENVIONIX Labs Pvt Ltd, a startup established with support from a research grant from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Researchers are additionally exploring solar-powered operation and cloud connectivity to support remote monitoring and data management.
The development positions E-Eye as an affordable, indigenous alternative for water-quality surveillance, industrial effluent monitoring and food-safety applications, particularly in locations where conventional laboratory testing is costly or inaccessible. Researchers said the next phase of work will focus on technology transfer, moving the innovation from laboratory development toward wider field deployment.
The Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati) is a premier public technical university dedicated to research and innovation in science, engineering and technology, with a strong focus on developing solutions relevant to India’s developmental needs.
]]>Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati researchers have developed a new strategy to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs specifically to the cancerous cells in a patient’s body. The path-breaking results of this research have been published in prestigious journals of The Royal Society of Chemistry including ‘Chemical Communications’ and ‘Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry’. The research papers have been co-authored by Prof. Debasis Manna, Department of Chemistry, IIT Guwahati, along with his research scholars Mr. Subhasis Dey, Ms. Anjali Patel, and Mr. Biswa Mohan Prusty, among others. Anticancer activities were carried out in collaboration with Prof. Siddhartha Sankar Ghosh and Ms. Plaboni Sen from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and Prof. Arindam Bhattacharyya and Mr. Soumya Chatterjee from Calcutta University.
A part of the ongoing research was recently highlighted as the cover page of Chemical Communications.
The problem with existing chemotherapeutic drugs is that they kill healthy cells of the body in addition to cancerous cells, leading to numerous undesirable side effects. In fact, it is believed that cancer deaths are as much due to the side effects of chemotherapy as the disease itself. There is worldwide research to overcome the drawbacks of secondary toxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs. Some strategies that are being explored include target-specific delivery of the drugs and on-demand delivery of appropriate drug doses to cancerous cells/tissues.
Explaining his research Prof. Debasis Manna, Department of Chemistry, IIT Guwahati, said, “We have two needs in the development of chemotherapy drugs – the drug must be targeted at the cancer cells, the drug must be released by an external trigger whenever it is required,”
To meet the above needs, the molecule developed by the research team has four special features.
Ø The first feature is that the molecules assemble to form hollow spherical shells in water These shells that are ten-millionth of a meter in size can be used as a minuscule container for the drug molecule
Ø The second characteristic is that the molecule has a part (the acetazolamide ligand) that specifically binds to cancer cells and not normal cells
Ø The third feature of the molecule is that it has a photocleavable linker moiety that is responsive to infrared light and breaks the shell when exposed to IR
Ø Molecule also contain a dye moiety (cyanine-3) which is also useful for both fluoresce and scattering-based imaging to visually monitor the entire process
Thus, the molecules developed by the IIT-G researchers self-assemble as capsules to hold the drug, which then attaches only to cancer cells. When infrared light is shone on it, the shell breaks and releases the encapsulated drug into the cancerous cell. The IIT-G scientists rightly believe that their approach would allow the development of drug carriers for chemotherapy with enhanced efficacy and negligible side effects.
The societal impacts of this work cannot be overstated. Given that the number of cancer patients in India is anticipated to be 30 million by 2025, the development of effective chemotherapeutic drugs and delivery systems is critical. The researchers believe that the development of target-specific, light-responsive, self-imaging macrocyclic lipids such as those they’ve developed could help in image-guided chemotherapeutic applications.
Following the development of the targeted IR (light)-trigger drug release system, the IIT Guwahati researchers are preparing to perform in vivo studies to take this understanding closer to drug development.
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