KARE EDITION

Kumaraguru Action for Relief and Empowerment (KARE) is a volunteer movement founded in November 2015 during the Chennai floods. KARE supports the victims of natural disasters such as floods, cyclone and other calamities. The team has also lent a helping hand to the people affected by the Kerala floods & Gaja Cyclone. Numerous activities are undertaken by KARE in providing refuge to the people during testing times. Presently, the team has been assisting people affected by the pandemic by various means. 

COVID CARE CENTRE:

With the cases in Coimbatore escalating at unsteady rates, the CCC at the Kumaraguru Campus was intended at providing the people with an additional source of security with regards to the medical aspect of the virus.

What started out as a 360-bedded CCC, has now become an 800-bedded Covid Isolation Centre. Arrangements have also been made to host a dedicated team of doctors, nurses and other frontline workers who will attend to the housed patients. The facility was inaugurated by the Honorable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Thiru M.K.Stalin in the presence if Dr.N.Manickam, Vice Chairman, Shri M.Balasubramaniam, Correspondent, Shri Shankar Vanavarayar, Joint Correspondent of Kumaraguru Institutions and Thiru Tharanipathy Rajkumar, Executive Director, Shakti Group.

The facility also provides library, 24×7 mental wellness counselling, conducive space for yoga, meditation and indoor sport. an autonomous robot with UV light to sanitize the facility and Wi-Fi for the inmates. The Institution will work with the Government officials and agencies to provide all support to the prevailing critical social health condition.

KARE COVID 19 RESPONSE

The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception, as the team has been working arduously to support and raise awareness among the public. KARE has been providing support for the welfare of the people through four major verticals – Social campaigns, Awareness campaigns, Resource Support & though mental health helpline.

1.KARE RESOURCE SUPPORT

To ensure that the families have enough food and other essentials, particularly during the pandemic, the KARE team has been working ardently to provide people, especially the sanitary workers and other front-line workers in and around Saravanampatti with food packages and essentials to people who were in need.

2.KARE HELPLINE

With the rise in mental health issues amidst the pandemic, KARE has launched an Awareness & Emotional Support center where the volunteers reach out to individuals to reassure them, create awareness about the COVID-19 second wave, and ensure the wellness of individuals through the wellness check. The helpline number 9487700817 is open from 9AM to 9PM and the volunteers actively assist the people.

3.INFORMATION BOOKLET/POSTERS:

The second wave of COVID-19 has been drastically affecting millions of people worldwide. In this regard, a lot of awareness is required among the public. Hence, all essential guidelines and pointers concerning the second wave of COVID-19 are curated jointly by volunteers and experts and are circulated across. The posters and the booklets are also translated into Tamil, for supporting the vernacular readers

4.COVID-19 RESPONSE BULLETIN:

 The KARE COVID-19 Response Bulletin is an initiative put forth by the students and the alumni from Kumaraguru Institutions to clear the clutter around COVID-19 and provide the citizens with informative, insightful, and factual data. This initiative which began in March 2020 has circulated more than 40 bulletins so far to declutter the misinformation revolving around COVID-19.

5.EMOTIONAL WELL BEING SESSIONS

Also, having understood the importance of keeping oneself sane during the pandemic, KARE along with YourDOST organized an emotional well-being session on May 8, 2021.The key takeaways were on how to beat anxiety by self-soothing, being present and grounded, taking good care of those around us, being more compassionate and at the same time learning to set boundaries.

6. SUPPORTING CPN

Recently, on May 28, 2021, the team has extended support to the Coimbatore Parenting Network (CPN) to collect milk from lactating mothers and deliver it to the Natal-ICU at GH for children who are abandoned or who require the same because of various reasons and the mothers who were supporting were not able to go out because of the pandemic. 9.5 Litres of Milk was handed over to the N-ICU staff at the GH.

7.VOLUNTEER SUPPORT TO UNIFIED COMMAND CENTRE

KARE has extended support to Unified Command Centre, Chennai wherein 20 Volunteers have helped to live stream the bed availability across Tamil Nadu. 15 Volunteers from KARE are now working with Coimbatore Municipal Corporation to check the wellness of patients isolated in Coimbatore and escalate to health workers and doctors.

RECOGNITION FOR CONTRIBUTION AGAINST COVID:

For its significant contributions towards the relief against the COVID19 pandemic, KARE was declared the winner of the AICTE “UTKRISHT SANSTHAN VISHWAKARMA AWARD 2020 (India fights Corona)” Under Category 12- Any other contribution against COVID-19. The award ceremony was graced virtually by Honorable Minister of Education Sh. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Honorable Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES ON COVID:

Piperolactam A from Long Pepper to Control COVID-19

JANAMITHRA ARJUN

FINAL YEAR BTECH. BIOTECHNOLOGY

REJOE RAYMOND

FINAL YEAR BTECH. BIOTECHNOLOGY

SOWFIYA S

FINAL YEAR BTECH. BIOTECHNOLOGY

CASHLIN

FINAL YEAR BTECH. BIOTECHNOLOGY

GUIDED BY

Dr. RAM KOTHANDAN

Assistant Professor II

Department of Biotechnology

An Insilico study “Virtual screening of phytochemical compounds as potential inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 Infection” promises Piperolactam A from Piper longum (Long Pepper) to control CS-GRP78 mediated entry of SARS-CoV2.

COVID-19 by SARS-CoV2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) emerged as a great threat to the World with India no exception is a living hell with terrifying infections, mortality rate and painful recovery, due lack of sufficient resources for treatment.

SARS-CoV2 looks like a crystal ball with several knobs like proteins know as Spike proteins (S-proteins). Since, this is a virus, SARS-CoV2 doesn’t possess a living machinery which help them grow or multiply independently and hence act as an inactive dust particle outside the cell. In order for them to replicate, they need a host cell inside which they can act as living being. For this, first they need to enter the living cell. Cells are impermeable to virus particle; their surface chemical properties prevent heavy materials or hydrophilic substance from entering the cell. But, our cell contains various receptor which aid in entry process directly or indirectly and provide the door for viral entry. One such well-studied door is ACE2-receptor (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 – receptor). When the knob like S-proteins interacts with the ACE2-receptor, present at the surface of the human cell they fuse and inject the viral genetic material (RNA) into the host cell. This genetic material then using the host living machinery replicate and emerge out of the host cell as a newly synthesized virus particle.  Most of the study target this receptor in drug development process, but our cell has several other doors which can also do the same work, which are not much considered.

This study aims at targeting and preventing one such door mediated entry know as CS-GRP78 receptor (Cell Surface – Glucose Regulated Protein 78) using Insilico techniques. GRP78 (Glucose Regulated Protein 78) protein is a molecular chaperone which has every essential function inside the cell, i.e. it helps in protein perfect structure assembly and disassembly thereby by providing perfect function. Normally this is present in all nucleated cells at the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), i.e., inside the cell. When this protein is overexpressed or in much quantity than needed, they escape ER fixation and move to cell surface and become as CS-GRP78 receptor like ACE2 receptor and promote viral entry. There are several reasons for the protein over expression like ER stress, glucose deprivation, obesity, cancer, type II diabetes and viral infection. So, considering CS-GRP78 mediated entry is very important as much as ACE2 receptor mediated entry.

In-silico techniques has a promising career in biological field where it can limit the time and cost spend in traditional drug development process. This study considered about 100 phytochemicals obtained from Western Ghats, India and found that among the 100 Pipeolactam A from Piper longum (Long pepper) found to inhibit S-proteins from interacting with CS-GRP78, thus control the entry. Piperolactam A from Piper longum (Long Pepper) bind well with S-Protein and prevent them from interacting with CS-GRP78 receptor, hence the virus cannot enter the cell.

UV BOT – iQube

The Covid Bot which was developed and designed by iQubians was displayed during our Honourable Chief Minister’s visit to the Covid Care Centre at KCT. The Covid Bot is put to use at the Care Centre for monitoring the patients. This autonomous robot performs tasks with high degree of economy. The Bot can be controlled remotely and it can be used to sanitize the area using UV rays and also for the distribution of medications to patients. The bot can act as a disinfectant and cleanses the rooms and ensures the maintenance of hygiene. It can be optimised to dispense medicines to the patients as per requirements. It reduces the intervention of health care workers, thus helps in reducing their work load as they require less supervision. The developers at iQube further add that this is a motivation for them to work more on projects that helps in tough times

Thermal Scanner

FlareX and Flareα are fully automatic non-contact temperature screeners created by Gokul Subramaniam-CSE, Kaushikaa Siddhartha -EIE, Mohamed Ameen -EEE, Ajay Kumar -CSE and Siddharth Saran CSE, all of Batch 2020 at their startup ‘Tested Ok’ which is funded by MHRD and AICTE. FlareX offers a contemporary screening solution with intuitive UI and built-in Cloud capabilities. It works with a proprietary AI algorithm that accurately estimates the Mean Body Temperature (MBT). It is powered by powerful 1Ghz processor ensuring quick and coherent results. The infrared knuckle temperature scanner by FlareX is specifically designed to reduce the infection caused by manual intervention. All systems are calibrated and aid the user to bring the fist within optimal measuring distance of the sensor, without incurring contact. Flareα is a minimal temperature scanner that works similar to FlareX but is devoid of the intuitive UI found in FlareX. Both these temperature scanners are designed to provide audio feedback and alerts. Amidst COVID-19, these AI powered technologies screen the temperature effectively.

Screen Easy – A cutting Edge Solution

This is an automated screening and protection station that is easy to use in public places, schools, colleges, organizations, parks, beaches etc. The concept and machine is designed and framed by the Robotics And Automation Club students Rakesh D, Prakash Ganesan, and Mohan A from Kumaraguru College Of Technology. The screening machine detects people who are sick. This complete system is totally automated and runs in a cloud-based architecture. Also, they have added up face mask detection as well as an attendance tracking system. The system can make sure the health security of the people within the organizations and it’s fitted with some modular designs like RFID module – which tracks the attendance of the workers, camera module – which enables mass direction algorithm and also measures the person’s body temperature, pulse and blood oxygen saturation level (SpO2), these are done by sensors that consume low energy. Meanwhile, these measured vitals are going to be sent to the google sheets API and simply viewed through the app which can be useful for the contact rising or future references. The main important thing about this technique is that is totally economical and uses accurate, cheap components. The entire system adheres to COVID-19 guidelines.

UV BOT – KCIRI

The UV BOT developed at KCIRI is a robot used to disinfect the surroundings using ultra-violet rays. This bot is operated using a mobile application, in which a camera view will be displayed.  It consists of sensors and a camera for obstacle avoidance and easy operation. UV bulbs can be Turn ON and OFF remotely through the application. This avoids the human contact to UV rays which is harmful. This bot can disinfect the closed environment like classrooms and laboratories.

SUPPORTING CPN
Forge OxiKit MUP

In efforts to combat the ongoing COVID crisis we, at Forge, are doing a 24*7 hack to build the Minimum Usable Prototype (MUP) Oxygen Concentrators to move the point of care from hospitals to homes up for the early-stage COVID cases.
Features of the Forge OxiKit MUP:
1. Pre-appliance grade oxygen concentrator suffices to operate reliably under non-technical supervision at quarantine centres, PHCs/CHCs, Rural HCs, and households for patients with mild conditions.
2. Oxygen delivery: 24 LPM at ~92% concentration.
3. IoT enabled to aid in remote system monitoring for prompt preventive/corrective maintenance.