ICRISAT Farming Systems Research Program

The 1973-74 season has been a year of great expansion for the farming systems program at ICRISAT both in terms of staff and wish regard to the scope of the program. Six Research Assistansts joined the farming systems team. A number of catchments were developed and the watershed-based phase of the program was initiated. A Farming Systems Research Program document was written and circulated workshop to be held in November 1974. A weather observatory was established. In contrast to be drought of the 1972 monsoon season (49.0% of normal) the rainfall during the 1973 monsoon (June-October) was 8.0% above normal and fairly well distributed. The total for the year (April '73 - March '74) was 754.4 or 94.0% of normal. Since ICRISAT is located about midway between the Hyderabad and Sangareddy weather stations, the "normal" are taken as an average of these two stations..

The delivery of personalised, precision medicines via synthetic proteins

Introduction: The design of advanced drug delivery systems based on synthetic and su-pramolecular chemistry has been very successful. Liposomal doxorubicin (Caelyx®), and liposomal daunorubicin (DaunoXome®), estradiol topical emulsion (EstrasorbTM) as well as soluble or erodible polymer systems such as pegaspargase (Oncaspar®) or goserelin acetate (Zoladex®) represent considerable achievements. The Problem: As deliverables have evolved from low molecular weight drugs to biologics (currently representing approximately 30% of the market), so too have the demands made of advanced drug delivery technology. In parallel, the field of membrane trafficking (and endocytosis) has also matured. The trafficking of specific receptors i.e. material to be recycled or destroyed, as well as the trafficking of protein toxins has been well characterized. This, in conjunction with an ability to engineer synthetic, recombinant proteins provides several possibilities. The Solution: The first is using recombinant proteins as drugs i.e. denileukin diftitox (Ontak®) or agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme®). The second is the opportunity to use protein toxin architecture to reach targets that are not normally accessible. This may be achieved by grafting regulatory domains from multiple species to form synthetic proteins, engineered to do multiple jobs. Examples include access to the nucleocytosolic compartment. Herein the use of synthetic proteins for drug delivery has been reviewed

Intercropping for increased and more stable agricultural production in the semi arid tropics

Meeting: Symposium on Intercropping for Semi-Arid Areas, 10-12 May 1976, Morogoro, TZIn IDL-196