A Colloquium on the Role of Amyloid β-peptide in Alzheimer Disease was conducted at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus, on May 5, 2017. The resource person was Dr. P. Kolandaivel, Emeritus Professor and Former Director, School of Physical SciencesDean (Research) and Registrar in-charge, Bharathiar University.

Alzheimer disease (AD) is one of the most common form of age-related neurodegenerative dementia, associated with loss of memory, cognitive decline, behavioural and physical disability, ultimately leading to death. The brain of AD is characterized by the presence of plaques and tangles in the cerebral cortex. The major constituent of these plaques is aggregation of amyloid β(Aβ) peptide. Efforts to design AD therapeutics based compounds which control Aβ aggregation have been hampered by the lack of a complete understanding of the neurotoxin role of various Aβ aggregations. Despite the large number of research have been focused on protein misfolding and amyloid formation, the coupling of these phenomena with disease is still challenging problem in AD.

Venue : S-010 (Conference Hall, Ground Floor, Main Building)

About the Speaker

Dr. P. Kolandaivel, Emeritus Professor and Former Director,School of Physical SciencesDean (Research) and Registrar in-charge, Bharathiar University.

Dr. P. Kolandaivel started his research career in the field of Molecular Spectroscopy and was awarded Ph.D. by the University of Madras in the year 1987. He joined as faculty in the Department of Physics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore and became Professor in the year 2002. He served as Head, Department of Physics/Medical Physics and Director, School ofPhysical Sciences, Bharathiar University from 2007 to 2016. He became the Dean (Research), Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, in 2011. During 2016, he acted as Registrar-in-charge, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. Further, he has served as co-ordinator for DST-FIST program, UGC-SAP program and has served as Member: Senate, Standing Committee on academic affairs BharathiarUniversity.He was awarded the Tamil Nadu Scientist Award (TANSA) in the field of PhysicalSciences for the year 2010 and elected as Fellow of The Academy of Sciences, Chennai,2015. He received international fellowships/awards to work as Visiting Scientist/Professorat various universities abroad viz. Department of Organic Chemistry, Academy of Sciences,Prague, Czech Republic (2015); Fulbright-Nehru Education Administrative Award, USA(2012); Department of Biotechnology, The University of Tokyo, Japan (under JSPS Invitation fellowship 2012); Institut Fur Physikaliche and TheoretischeChemieTechnischeUniversitatMunchen, Germany (2009), Centre for Computational Chemistry, Universityof Bristol, Bristol, UK (2007); Department of Chemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, USA(Emerson Fellowship, 2006); Department of Chemistry, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan(2004); Department of Molecular Biophysics, German Cancer Research Institute, Heidelberg, Germany (2001); Department of Chemistry, Universidade, de Santiago de Compostela,Santiago, Spain (1998); Department of Chemistry, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan (1997).

He has published around 175 research articles in international journals, in addition to authoring book chapters in books published by the Taylor and Francis publications. Under his guidance, 18 scholars have completed their PhD degrees.