18 Nov 2008, 0030 hrs IST, CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA, TNN
For the seventh year running, India is the leading source of foreign enrolments on US campuses, sending a record 94,563 students during the academic year 2007-2008.
WASHINGTON: A legendary Indian-American tech guru and a teenage Indian-American science prodigy won high recognition in the United States this week in yet more vindication of the ethnic group's growing reputation for producing science and technology ‘brainiacs’.
Amar Bose's induction into the National Inventors’ Hall of Fame came as no surprise considering his long-hailed contribution to acoustics technology.
This year, he joins inventors who gave the world the television remote control (Robert Adler), electrocardiograph (Willem Einthoven), hip replacement surgery (John Charnley), and Containerized Shipping (Malcolm McLean) in the national scroll.
The only other Indian in the Inventors’ Hall of Fame is Rangaswamy Srinivasan, a former IBM scientist named for his pioneering work on excimer laser surgery. The list has storied names like Thomas Edison and Wright Brothers.
Meanwhile, a teenage Indian-American student from North Carolina who began to take interest in cancer research when she was six won the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search (Watch) , annual competition often termed the "junior Nobel Prize".
Shivani Sud, 17, a Durham high school student, was awarded a $100,000 college scholarship during a ceremony in Washington on Tuesday for her research to improve colon cancer treatment.
Sud's interest in the subject began as a child when an immediate family member was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She would lug heavy books to her mother, a former cytogeneticist, and ask her to explain the science, according to accounts in the local News and Observer. In middle school, she began working in laboratories through programs at Temple University, Duke University and the National Institutes of Health.
Sud's most recent work focuses on early-stage colon cancer, an illness in which as many as 30 per cent of patients relapse after treatment.
By identifying a predictor that would determine which patients are likely to suffer relapses, she hopes to prevent patients who are unlikely to benefit from chemotherapy from going through the expensive and painful treatment.
Looking at genetic predictors may also help doctors choose the best medications for cancer patients.
Sud was among the seven high school students of Indian origin who made the list of 40 finalists in the annual Intel competition that attracted some 1600 high school seniors nationwide.
The others, who each get $ 5000 scholarship and a laptop, are Avanthi Raghavan of Florida, Shravani Mikkilineni of Michigan, Hamsa Sridhar and Ashok Chandran of New York, Isha Jain of Pennsylvania, and Vinay Ramasesh of Texas.
The recognitions came at a time when the Indian government boasted, on the basis of dubious, unsubstantiated numbers, that its education system was responsible for the large number of Indian scientists and engineers across the world.
Neither Bose, whose mother was German, nor Sud and the other students are products of the Indian system, although in the case of the latter, some experts have suggested that Indian parental attention to education may have had a role in their success.
chidanand.rajghatta@timesgroup.com
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