Dr. S. Ramaswamy is a Senior Professor and Dean at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), in Bangalore, India. A PhD holder from the Indian Institute of Science, he is a Scientist, Science Administrator, Institution Builder, Consultant, Entrepreneur, Advisor, Teacher, and Enabler. With successful careers in three continents, Dr. Ramaswamy has an experience in setting up multinational collaborative research and education programs, industry-academia collaborative programs, innovation acceleration, and in creating and managing technology platforms. He strongly believes that collaboration and institutional success is the core 'value system' in science and leadership. He has also bagged the University of Iowa Research Foundation's "Inventors Award" for 2016. Currently, he also serves as the Chair of the Governing Council of the Institute for Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences, Bangalore and is a scientific Advisor and Mentor to several start-up companies, including, XCODE, Bugworks, and iBioA.

ET:  At the outset, how would you describe the current status of the biological research scene in India? In particular, what are the broad areas being researched in India?

SR:  Life Science Research in India is at an interesting point. There is an opportunity for India to break into the big league. There is a very broad area of applied work especially in the agricultural sector which has made a big difference to the Indian economy. We have had two spikes in agricultural productivity. India is a big producer and exporter of chicken. In the Pharma sector, we produce a significant amount of generics (process innovation) and are now growing to be producers of biosimilars. Investments by the government in life science research has hence yielded great returns.

However, our basic sciences have not kept pace with applied research. This has resulted in India not being a leader in creating a new biotech industry - but it has been a follower all along - a user of life science research. However, the timing is appropriate that if the right administrative investments, administrative changes, regulatory frameworks and policies are put in place, India can become a global player in biotechnology.

ET:  What are the challenges that hinder the advancement of this segment in India and how can key stakeholders overcome these?

SR:  There are a number of challenges. A few are listed here in order of what changes will have the maximum impact:

1. It is imperative that the Government invests in science. However, it is impossible to predict what research will become a product in the near future. Hence, science funding has to be relieved of "control". When the British ruled India and they needed Indian officers to run the government, they had Indian officers to feel that they run the 'departments'. The department heads had a feeling of power - they could decide a lot of things, but could not sign a cheque. The cheque was signed by a white man (who apparently was below the level of this head). This white man reported to the "exchequer" (read: Finance Ministry, in today's parlance). His goal was to save money - the less money each department spent, the more it went to the 'Crown'. He was rewarded based on how much money he did not let the department spend (yet the British tooted their horns saying how much was allocated to each department and how they are committed to welfare, education, science, etc.). The department heads hence had no real power. Unfortunately, we have replaced the white man with a Finance Ministry official. The secretaries of the science departments have to have the signature of the "financial advisor" on every expenditure. This puts the real power with the financial advisor, who reports to the Finance Ministry (this person has now replaced the white person). These people have no understanding of science and every project (after recommendation by a peer committee) gets budget cuts. Money is not released on time and this has reached a crisis point. Real progress in science can happen when peer groups decide not only what to fund but how much to fund. This requires funding decisions be decentralized.
   
   Unless the mission of science and technology development is given to domain experts, Indian science will grow at minimal pace and the motivation of Indian scientists will remain low. Sure, the Finance Ministry makes the budget allocations, however, once that is made the powers of expenditure should lie with the secretaries and Ministry of Science, rather than the Finance Ministry. Unless this happens, Indian science is only going to totter, even if they hire the best people to run the ministries. The evidence is present in our 'Space' and 'Atomic Energy missions', where autonomy was given and results are obvious. Even this autonomy is being eroded. Today, the government needs to invest in the critical areas of life sciences in 'mission mode'. The effects will then be visible 15-20 years from now. The lack of this sustained investment and administrative hurdles if removed will give a big fillip to Indian life science research. This culture of lack of autonomy then percolates down to the lowest levels.

2. There is a constant confusion between 'output' and 'outcome'. Indian science is primarily output driven. Where did you publish your paper - what is the impact factor of the journal? Did you spend the grant money in the correct 'head' to which it was allotted. How many students did you train? These are the types of questions that are used to evaluate science. These are outputs. Unfortunately, in the Indian context neither the scientists nor the science administration distinguishes the difference between output and outcome. Hence, there is a constant bias to the reward - which is the output rather than the outcome. Most research institute heads/directors spend more time worrying about audit than about scientific outcomes.

3. Leadership crisis - there is serious leadership crisis - at all levels. Indian life science has so far lacked a Homi Bhaba (for atomic energy) or a Satish Dhawan (for space) who had a direct line to the highest offices that allowed them to chaperone these programs in mission mode, yet be focused and generous in the national interest. Scientific accomplishments are confused with leadership roles and our good scientists (with their high self-interest - a critical factor to succeed in science) are often put in leadership roles, compromising both their scientific productivity as well as organizations/institutions that they lead.

4. Culture - the idea that somehow intellectual elitism is superior to the need to translate and create commercially or socially useful science is still very prevalent. This has made it very hard for Indian industries to work with Indian academic institutions. Conflict of interest is used to kill the association of academics with the Indian industry. It is almost impossible to have no conflict of interest - science leadership has to learn to 'manage' conflict of interest. This in spite of government policies that allow and encourage translation, consulting and working with industry. Unless one accepts that financial rewards for discoveries when translated into market are good - there is going to be very little motivation to do this. There will always be the exceptions - but one cannot rely on exceptions to drive the economy.

5. Inability to deal with private institutions that do research - our funding agencies (and the bureaucrats therein) cannot seem to reconcile to the fact that private universities and NGOs can do good science and it should be supported. Many of the best universities in the world are private (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc.) and this needs to dramatically change.

6. Obsession with "Indian". Most of the countries that have scientific ambitions (including China) hire the best scientists to do their research and allow them to flourish. They do not discriminate based on race or nationality, the ability to garner funding for the program as far as they are employed in a local institution and do their research in that country. Many of the grants (both for research and start-ups) are today only for Indian nationals. While, there is significant talk about trying to get back the lost talents (Indian origin scientists outside, who are now not Indian citizens), once they are hired they are not treated as equals even if they are "overseas citizen of India". The policy has to turn to no discrimination in the ability to get government grants for doing science or doing start-ups as far as they are done in India. This is a sure way to get the best people in the world to come and do science and do their start-ups in India.

7. The inability of practitioners to participate in science is a big bottleneck - our agricultural outreach personnel or our clinical doctors are not trained and find it difficult to also have a research career in parallel. This hinders research and needs to change to provide direction to science that is of relevance to our society.

The above changes will allow better use of even the small resources that India allocates for research and development.

ET:  Is the scientific research ecosystem in India comparable to those in the US, UK, China, Japan, etc. & what is your view on the quality of research conducted in Indian institutions, both governmental research bodies & in Industry?

ET:  Are Indian scientists burdened by the cost of research? Or, can one claim that 'frugal science' practices lead to more cost-effective innovations in India?

SR:  Indian Scientists are not burdened by the cost of research. While the overall funding level for science is low, the number of active biological research scientists is also low. I do not think there is pressure to do 'frugal science'. The funding rate in India is better than funding rates in most developed nations.

ET:  How do you view the contribution of private companies, especially start-ups, in developing & engaging in biological research in India?

SR:  Private companies in India differ a lot. In the Pharma sector, there is a significant confusion between Research and Development. Real basic research - even that is targeted towards understanding disease processes - is not done in Indian Pharma. Most work starts either with phenotypic screens or medicinal chemistry on already established targets. The CROs are set up to do state of the art work. However, they work on other people's ideas. Start-ups in life sciences is a growing enterprise in India. In the past few years, very exciting science is being done in start-ups. This has also been fuelled by grant funding from public agencies. This significantly de-risks providing undiluted funding to start-ups, allowing them to ask questions that they cannot normally ask from an angel investor or a venture capitalist. Indian life science start-ups are also working in the intersection of engineering technology, information technology and life sciences where a number of exciting new findings are beginning to happen.

ET:  What is the role of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in inculcating the spirit of research among students and research fellows in the community?

SR:  The Bangalore Life Science cluster consists of three different institutions. The oldest is the National Center for Biological Science (NCBS), which is a center of the Tata Institute Fundamental Research, Mumbai. NCBS is 25 years this year and it carries out research in a wide variety of areas in biological science. Science is driven by individual scientists and their groups. In 2009, NCBS incubated the creation of a new institute where research is done in a thematic fashion by groups of people coming together to solve problems. The Institute was funded by the Department of Biotechnology and called the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative medicine (inStem). Currently, the Institute has six themes and most of the themes are multi-national collaborations. inStem's mandate is a combination of basic research as well as translational work. inStem also has a center at the Christian Medical College at Vellore. The third institution is the Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) which acts as the interface with industry and drives innovation. C-CAMP has programs that help convert discoveries that happen in research labs into innovation that is interesting to develop products. They help convert ideas to proof of concepts in collaboration with the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC). It works with several agencies that promote start-ups in life sciences and provides incubation support and mentoring by bringing in industry leaders with domain expertise along with start-ups. While the institutions were set up with different mandates, today, many people work across these three institutions seamlessly.

The Bangalore Life Science cluster is a unique experimental model, which promotes individual excellence, theme driven science, translation (discovery to innovation) and a start-up culture all in one campus. This allows students and research fellows to think broadly and contribute to society in multiple ways.

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