Molecular Design of Lipids and Their Assemblies and Interaction with Natural Components of Biological Cell Membranes

DR Santanu Bhattacharya, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, has been chosen, along with Dr V. Chandrasekhar, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, for the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences, for the year 2003 [CSIR News, 53(2003), 288].

Dr Bhattacharya has made notable contributions to the molecular design of lipids and their assemblies and interaction with natural components of the biological cell membranes. He also spearheaded design, synthesis and applications of new peptides for sequence-specific DNA recognition, novel DNA modifying agents, metallomicelles, surfactants, low molecular mass gelators, supramolecular and nanomaterials.

Dr Bhattacharya et al. synthesized a number of novel phospholipid and dimeric lipids, sugar based lipids and cholesteryl lipids and investigated their properties upon vesicle formation¹. In certain designs, the strategies involved in situ synthesis of lipidic systems through `salt-bridge' type of interaction, and incorporation of `bent' molecular templates for the modulation of lipid packing upon their self-organization into membranous aggregates. Through these designs, it was shown how subtle variation of molecular architectures in these lipids influences the membrane formation, assembly, entrapment capacities, lipid order, stability and polymorphism. Using a new experimental approach, the nature of cholesterol-phospholipid interactions in vesicular membranes has been elucidated.

They investigated the DNA-lipid interactions using a number of biophysical and biochemical methods and utilized cationic lipids and related cytofectins for achieving non-viral gene transfer². An important outcome of this work is the preparation of formulations for achieving gene transfection in mammalian cells in the presence of serum³.

Dr Bhattacharya and co-workers designed minor-groove binding drugs and synthesized several analogues of distamycin⁴. A dimeric peptide motif has been developed that binds to duplex DNA sequence-specifically and possesses enhanced affinity toward B-DNA than its natural counterpart. They also designed a range of DNA modifying reagents⁵ utilizing cationic transition metal complexes that induced activation of molecular oxygen under ambient conditions. They synthesized novel intercalatable metal-complexes, which could trigger DNA cleavage upon exposure to room light at physiological conditions.

Dr Bhattacharya prepared several metallo-organic surfactants, which in water at physiological pH and room temperature, generated metallomicelles. These aggregates bearing Cu (II) ion based nucleophiles provide practical means of achieving catalytic transformations in aqueous media⁶. Dr Bhattcharya also investigated the fundamentals of micellar aggregation by designing new gemini surfactants with the aid of small-angle-neutron-scattering and other physical chemical methods⁷. The first example of novel surfactants with multiple-head-groups has been reported⁸. After incorporation of three charges per hydrocarbon chain, micellar assembly was still possible although the aggregation number was reduced significantly.

They developed several fatty acid derived peptides and sugars that gelate specific solvents including water⁹. Such gels consisted of different types of fibrillar networks, including nano-sized tapes, and tubules. First instance of phase-selective gelation of oil from a two-phase mixture of oil in water has also been reported¹⁰. This finding has been recognized as a fundamental lead in this area of research.^10b,c.

Prof. Santanu Bhattacharya is currently a Professor in the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He has made notable contributions to the design of novel lipids and oligopeptides for gene regulation, and cationic liposomes and nanoparticles for gene delivery and transfection. His research has led to a substantial body of published work, which has received extensive citations and recognition. In addition to the present Bhatnagar Prize, he is a recipient of the Swarnajayanti Fellowship of the Department of Science & Technology, B.M. Birla Prize, National Bioscience Award for Career Development (Department of Bio-technology), and Bhagyatara National Award.

Mukhopadhyay, Dhanagopal (1890-1936)

poet, writer of children's books, patriot and a propagator of Indian culture in the United States and Europe, was born in Kolkata. His father Kishorilal Mukhopadhyay, was a lawyer and practitioner of music. His elder brothers, Jadugopal and Kshirodgopal, were revolutionaries. It was under their influence that Dhanagopal acquired revolutionary ideas while still in his teens.

 Dhanagopal's prime concern was how to free his country. In 1908 he left for Japan, ostensibly to study engineering after his Entrance examination but actually to set up a secret society. From there he went to the United States, where he married an American girl, Ethel Ray Duggan, and became an American citizen.

 Dhanagopal graduated in comparative literature from Stanford University. On the advice of his brother, Jadugopal, Dhanagopal devoted himself to the task of drawing the sympathy of Americans to India through his writings, all of which are in English.

 Dhanagopal wrote in a variety of genres. His first book, Rajani, is in verse and his second book, Layla Majnu (1916), is a play. The book that created a stir in the western world and made him famous was A Son of Mother India Answers (1928), which he had written in reply to Catherine Mayo's Mother India. Some of his other popular books include The Face of Silence, My Brother's Face, Caste and Outcaste (1923) and Visit India with Me. The Face of Silence (1930) describes the greatness of ramakrishna. After reading this book, Romain Rolland was inspired to write biographies of Ramakrishna and  swami vivekananda. My Brother's Face describes Jadugopal's revolutionary life, Dhanagopal's own childhood and a variety of family matters. Caste and Outcaste is an autobiography and includes Dhanagopal's description of his struggles abroad to establish himself. Visit India with Me describes different holy places and cities in India.

 Dhanagopal also wrote children's books. In 1927 he was awarded the John Newberry prize for Gay Neck. His other books for children include Kari the Elephant, Jungle Beasts and Men, Ghond, The Hunter, Hari, The Jungle Lad, The Chief of the Herd (1929). His Devotional Passages of the Hindu Bible (1929) is a collection of passages from the gita and the upanisads. Dhanagopal's writings reflect his farsightedness, keen insight and spiritualism.

 Unfortunately Dhanagopal became mentally sick in later life. In 1936 he committed suicide in New York. [Dulal Bhowmik]

 

---

 

 

Mukul Dey - A Brief Profile
by Satyasri Ukil

 

Mukul Dey and his two Russian co-passengers on Japanese liner 'Canada Maru' from Yokohama to Seattle in the USA, dated 10th September, 1916.

 

Indian painter-engraver Mukul Chandra Dey (1895-1989) — better known as Mukul Dey — was an important personality of his time. A student of Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan School during the early years of 20th century (c. 1906-1912) — he left his mark as a pioneer of drypoint-etching in India. Mukul Dey is also remembered for his superbly executed portraits of the rich and the famous… the Tagores, Albert Einstein, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sven Hedin, the Tatas...

 

An extremely sensitive artist… maybe temperamental at times — he had chosen an essentially Western medium to depict his subjects of Indian life and legends from a common man's viewpoint. The river scenes of Bengal, the baul singers, the bazaars of Calcutta or the life of Santhal villages in Birbhum… all had attracted his attention and he recorded his vision with deep feeling and a rare sureness of hand.

 

Mukul Dey is also remembered for his superbly executed portraits of the rich and the famous… the Tagores, Albert Einstein, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sven Hedin, the Tatas and many many more. Coming from a family background which had seen much difficult times, he had to learn his skills well for his survival and support. He states in My Reminiscences, "In 1918, I realised a long cherished dream by visiting the Ajanta Caves. I at once made up my mind to copy the frescos but as I had no money, I had to travel to various cities of southwestern India drawing portraits of rich men and selling my work for a few rupees only."
 

 

Not only as an important practicising artist, Mukul Dey deserves to be remembered as an art-collector as well. Forever passionately in love with the various forms of folk arts and crafts and the works of his contemporary Neo-Bengal School artists — he was an intrepid collector and promoter of their creations. During his tenure as the first Indian principal of Government School of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta (1928-1943); Mukul Dey had organised at least two most important exhibitions at the school premises.

 

Original brush and ink drawing depicting Japanese artist Shokin Katsuta. This postcard was drawn and written by Mukul Dey and was sent to Gagonendranath Tagore at the latter's Jorasanko residence, Calcutta.

 

Whereas at a particular point of time, most of us educated Indians had forgotten to appreciate our rich cultural heritage, it was left to the likes of Mukul Dey who had their orientations in Japan and Europe to promote their fellow Indian artists.

 

Having interacted deeply with such Japanese and European masters as — Yokoyama Taikan, Shimomura Kanzan, Kampo Arai, Yashiro Yukio, Stanislav Szukalski, James Blanding Sloan, Roi Partridge, Muirhead Bone, Frank Short, Henry Tonks and George Clausen — had widened his horizons enough to appreciate the genius of Jamini Roy and thus sponsor his first ever solo exhibition in Sept-Oct 1929 at Calcutta. Similarly, much before the Western art world took any cognizance of Rabindranath Tagore as an artist, Mukul Dey had wanted to put up his show as early as 1928. However, as Tagore himself was more keen to get recognistion from the cultural arena of Paris and Berlin first, this particular exhibition had to wait till the beginning of 1932.

 

Mukul, our grandfather had a strange attachment to papers and images… something he would never destroy. For years together, he went on adding to his mind boggling repository of visual and textual information. Positively, he had a sense of history… a penchant for our recorded cultural history. This was decidely a civilised attribute for which most of us Indians were never very well known in the past.

 

Positively, he had a sense of history… a penchant for our recorded cultural history. This was decidely a civilised attribute for which most of us Indians were never very well known in the past. Quite contrary to the general Indian trait of ahistoricity, here was a modern Indian artist who tried to do his best to keep and preserve those tiny little fragments of our cultural fabric.

 

Artist Mukul Dey amid his pile of papers. "Chitralekha", Santiniketan, India 1983.

 

At his residence "Chitralekha", day after day and all alone, he used to sit amidst his pile of papers… looking at them, sifting and occasionally filing away. Sketches and drawings, old photographs, original correspondences, period newspaper clippings, exhibition and collection catalogues and hordes of most rare lantern slides depicting various stages and development of our traditional Indian art.

 

Mukul Dey had never lost his hope. He was hopeful to his very last that some day someone from his immediate society would lend him a hand to preserve his collection in a musuem or a gallery… A dream he could never fulfill in his life. His priceless collection got fragmented and scattered all over Europe, Asia and the USA.

 

His priceless collection got fragmented and scattered all over Europe, Asia and the USA. For example, a major part of his 451 strong Kalighat pata painting collection was acquired by W G Archer for the Victoria and Albert Museum way back in the 1930s. Similarly, his masterpiece copies of Ajanta, Bagh, Sigiriya and Sittanavasal frescoes went to British Musuem and Japan respectively. Most of what remained in India had decayed and degenerated with the passage of time… as, in the meanwhile, most of us educated Indians have been much too busy imbibing the doctrines of Post-Modernism imported wholesale from abroad. Dey passed away in 1989....all that he left behind DO NOT tell his story alone. Instead, these fragile papers are capable of taking a researcher on a rare trip to a fascinating period of our cultural history which is yet to be fully explored and interpreted.

 

It was only in his absence that we rediscovered that all that he left behind DO NOT tell his story alone. Instead, these fragile papers are capable of taking a researcher on a rare trip to a fascinating period of our cultural history which is yet to be fully explored and interpreted. This is extremely important because these informations deal with our immediate past… a past which is not at all remote and therefore still capable of influencing our present in a positive way. And, as they say, those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

 

Mukul Dey throughout his life was in search of those essentially positive, tangible and virile qualities of our traditional Indian art and culture which seldom loses its flavour and relevance over the passage of time.. and he wanted for an inter-cultural cross-fertilisation of ideas to infuse enriched aesthetics into our everyday existence. As Mukul Dey emphasized in his January 22, 1932 speech at Rotary Club, Calcutta: "There are in India at present three types of thought — one would have everything European bodily transplanted into India; another would have nothing to do with anything that savoured of Europe, the third was not afraid to engraft the best from foreign sources for the enrichment of the indigenous stock."

 

In the process of his life long quest, he was one among many firm believers in our pan-Asian cultural identity … and, who forever hoped for a culturally united Asia.

 

 

---

 

SUSHIL DHARA :

DREAMS OF `42 - SERVICE IN `90'S

 

For the present generation, freedom struggle is but a glorious chapter in the annals of the nation's history. A struggle which was non violent, pitted the moral strength of a subjugated nation against the might of a colonial power to emerge victorious as a free land. In this 50th year of our independence we are fortunate to have, amidst us, a few individuals who made the dream of a free India come true. This is an opportune moment to recreate the past and learn from the experience of these living legends.

 

It is a rare privilege to meet an octogenarian that too a freedom fighter. For Sushil Dhara is no ordinary mortal, he was an important functionary of Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar (Tamralipta National Government) formed during the `42 movement. He was entrusted the portfolios of War and Home, and also commanded "Vidyut Bahini" (the lightning Brigade) of the parallel Government in Tamluk. He was again a minister of West Bengal in the late 6o's. An avowed disciple of Gandhiji and a bachelor fully devoted to social service, Sushil Dhara is still full of life and energy. Yes, he delights in making quick reminiscence of the past, though equally live to the trends of the modern times - the growth of Indian democracy, the challenges before the nation and above all, her march towards the twenty first century in a global economy too. The purpose of the meeting was to relive the August Movement in Bengal and see through his eyes, the India of today.

 

August 8, 1942. The All India Congress Committee in its historic resolution asked the British to Quit India. This is an open rebellion. "In this struggle, secrecy is the sin", said Gandhiji. The British Police swung into action and took into custody all the members of the working committee including Gandhiji. In his last message to his countrymen Gandhiji said "do or die". Bewildered and infuriated, the people responded in their own way. "Call it an impromptu frenzy of the mob, or whatever one wants to say. The people took to large scale violence with sole object to free their motherland and make themselves proud citizens of a free country.

 

"As usual, the movement started in big cities like Mumbai (Bombay), Ahmedabad, Pune, Calcutta, Patna and Dhaka. But in no time it spilled over the countryside and engulfed Satara, Banaras, Gorakhpur, large parts of Bihar and Midnapur. The Tamluk subdivision of Midnapore in West bengal was indeed the eye of the storm that blew off to pieces the very pride of the mighty British who vaunted of an empire in which the sun did never set. As if to prove it otherwise, a National Government was formed in Tamluk with a number of Ministers.

 

National Government

 

"It was indeed a parallel Government with a judiciary and a law and order machinery. The Government helped the poor and the distressed. An army was raised with volunteers. It had combatants, intelligence officials, ambulance corps with well trained doctors and nurses. The National Government functioned from December 17, 1942 to August 8, 1944. It was dissolved on the explicit directions of Mahatma Gandhi.

 

"The National Government had an impartial and efficient judiciary; courts were held in the open. One could engage a lawyer free of cost and start a suit by paying only Rs. two as court fee. Fair trial with little or no cost, Sushil Dhara reminisces. India too is going the same way particularly with family courts, Lok Adalats, legal aid etc., he felt. Such was the fairness of the judgements delivered in the courts of the National Government that the judiciary in free India upheld their verdicts later on", remarks Sushil Dhara with a proud glitter in his eyes.

 

The basic purpose of any government is to help uplift the economic condition of the poor and under privileged. The National Government of Tamluk did it in their own way weaning out the people from the clutches of the money lenders, zamindars and the landed aristocracy. Free India also saw the abolition of bonded labour, nationalisation of commercial banks, with the four-objectives of helping the poor and the deprived. The steady progress in different rural development schemes ensuring people of abetter life, the women and the children a better health and socio-economic security are indeed "an extension of the dreams of the National Government".

 

Talking about those heady days, he says,"You talk of rights of the girl child and emancipation of women, that's good. But remember, we had it long before. Long before, we had ensured even with nine per cent literacy in Midnapur in those days, a total participation of the people in all spheres of activities required for good governance. We had a Bhagini Bahani (Sisters' Brigade) we taught the women to use knives and other weapons in defence of their honour.

 

We helped in the rehabilitation of sexually harassed women and evolved different schemes, to bring them on the path of self-reliance, economic freedom of women as you call it now. Still, as I see around me, thousands of girls going to school, colleges and offices, working side by side with men, fighting out all the evils of male chauvinism. I feel proud of my mother land. Yes, the Government is rightly on to its task," Sushil Dhara feels.

 

He strongly refuted all allegations that in forming the National Government they had deviated from the Gandhian principles of non-violence."Yes, Gandhiji asked us not to resort to violence - my blood will be on your head, he had said. But it was the British who compelled us to turn violent. Did not Gandhiji write to Lord Linlithgo that the (British) government goaded the people to the point of madness, through their drastic and unwarranted action. Remember, we dissolved the government when Gandhiji after his release from jail, had asked us to do so. Did we dither?", Dhara asked.

 

"It is, however, sad that India became free with some geo-physical decimation. It is a partial sacrifice. The country got a constitution - an exhaustive one; a sanctum sanctorum indeed. A democracy is in operation. Successive governments are following the constitution in letter and spirit. But still there are weaknesses here and there. Weaknesses that are inherent in every democracy", Sushil Dhara stops for a while, clears his spectacles, whispers some instructions to a young volunteer of Tamralipta Janakalyan Samiti.

 

A Tribute

 

Janakalyan Samiti is a multi-purpose voluntary organisation busy inter alia in writing history of our freedom movement. They offer scholarships to researchers and the use of their modest library. The Samiti has also erected memorial building in honour of the freedom fighters of Tamluk. The purpose is to inculcate among the young generation the spirit of sacrifice and patriotism, a complete knowledge of the history of the country's freedom movement Janakalyan Samiti has also taken up the project of conserving the saga of heroism and courage of the freedom fighters of Tamluk.The first phase of memorial building was completed in 1996 after nine long years. Needless to say, Sushil Dhara is one of the few brains behind the entire project and his involvement in it is total.

 

Service Before Self

 

The veteren freedom fighter firmly believes that moulding the future of the nation is the duty of the youth. As he puts it,"The young generation must come forward. They have to shoulder the responsibilities of nation building, the smooth functioning of democracy ", Sushil Dhara, however, appeared a bit sceptical at one point - will the young generation follow the directions of the older one? The answer is yes and no. "But I must ask them to look forward to Gandhiji for guidance. Gandhiji is very much relevant even today. His life was a mission. We must ask the young generation to take the cue from Mahatma's life - service before self".

 

On the functioning of our democracy, he has his own opinion. Governments, at the Centre and the States keep changing as they should in a democracy, still the poor is there and so are the under-privileged. This must not continue. People have to be vocal about their rights and also aware of their duties towards the nation.

 

It was dark outside, the mercury dipping in considerably. The prospect of globalized economy and how India is destined to fare in not too distant future was a ready question, but I preferred to keep that in store. The man yet not withered by age,was still full of life that I might get another chance in future to go for such questions, better not disturb this visionary, the pedlar of dreams,who is still ceaselessly engaged in the service of the nation. Sushil Dhara is the embodiment of the ideals of our freedom movement. He is the spirit of free India. Today, men like Sushil Dhara are rare indeed.

 

---

 

 

 

 

Biswanath Mukherjee
Professor
Ph.D., University of Washington, 1987

 

Professor Mukherjee is conducting research in the areas of lightwave networks (where the goal is to develop novel architectures, protocols, and algorithms for the next generation of high-speed networks that can exploit the characteristics of emerging WDM optical technology), network intrusion detection (where the goal is to detect network software vulnerabilities and network attacks in real time), and wireless networks (including sensor networks).