WASHINGTON: Infosys co-founder Senapathy "Kris" Gopalakrishnan has donated a whopping $1.8 million to the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. to setup a research partnership between the varsity and the Indian Institute of Science.
"The partnership between CMU and the Centre for Brain Research at the IISc in Bangalore will strategically leverage the research strengths of both institutions while enhancing the connection between CMU and India," a statement released by the university said.
"One of the most pressing challenges facing humanity is to understand the human brain," CMU President Subra Suresh said.
"Our hope is that this new research collaboration will lead to discoveries about euro-degenerative diseases that afflict the aging population, and that those findings help improve our diagnostic and treatment capabilities for such diseases," he said.
The Centre for Brain Research at IISc was launched through a foundational gift from the Pratiksha Trust, a charitable trust established by Gopalakrishnan and is focused on understanding and treating neuro-degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
This partnership will provide opportunities for applying new technologies from fields ranging from imaging to machine learning to address critical questions about neuro- degeneration and normal aging.
"I am very pleased to support President Subra Suresh's strategic vision for the collaboration between CMU and IISc through this gift so that we can address one of the grand challenges of our times by understanding the human brain," Gopalakrishnan said.
Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus is home to more than 1,000 students from India, comprising nearly 10 percent of the entire student population on campus.
India also is home to the second largest concentration of CMU alumni.
The partnership will explore avenues to further strengthen the intellectual ties between CMU and India, while addressing some of the most challenging research problems in brain research, the statement said.
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