IIT Madras alumnus Prem Watsa contributes US$ 5 million for brain research

NEW DELHI: The Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a Canadian financial firm established by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras alumnus Prem Watsa, will contribute US$ 5 million (about INR 41 crore) to support research at IIT Madras' Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre.

V Prem Watsa, an IIT Madras graduate with a first class degree in chemical engineering from 1971 batch, received the distinguished alumnus award in 1999. The donation was facilitated by the Canadian Friends of IIT-Madras (CFIITM), a registered charity with the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA), which aims to promote the interests of IIT Madras among its Canadian alumni and the broader Canadian community.

Project on brain imaging at cellular level

As per the official press release, the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre, established in March 2022, aims to drive an ambitious global project focused on imaging the human brain at the cellular level, producing unprecedented human brain data, scientific outputs, and technological tools.

Development of high-throughput histology pipeline

The IIT Madras Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre has developed a high-throughput histology pipeline, capable of converting whole human brains into petabyte-scale high-resolution digital images. As per the official press release, these unique, first-in-class datasets of various human brains offer an unprecedented, detailed view at the cellular level across the entire brain. Leading neuroscience experts worldwide are studying this data to gain new insights and make discoveries.

Prem Watsa commends IIT Madras brain centre's research excellence

Commending the research underway at this Centre, Prem Watsa, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, said, “The quality of work and the team’s commitment at IITM’s Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre is truly outstanding. The technology platform they have developed that generates high-resolution image volumes of human brains is very unique. It has a far reaching impact in advancing our knowledge of human brains, developing insights that will lead to solutions for highly challenging brain diseases.”

Prem Watsa added, “To handle this enormous complexity, they are working in close collaboration with brain researchers in various fields around the world. Fairfax is pleased to support this cutting-edge R&D work and we wish them the very best to reach greater heights.”

Further, Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys and distinguished alumnus of IIT Madras who played a key role in establishing the Centre said, “I compliment Prem Watsa on his contribution to the Brain Centre at IIT Madras. This augments the support the Centre is already receiving from various philanthropic and CSR funds and enables the Centre to scale up its research on human brain atlas.”