Endeavour Success StoriesMon 6th July 2015
Endeavour Success Stories
Sumit Arora undertook his Endeavour Research Fellowship at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, University Sydney in 2014 researching the treatment of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA).
“IPA is a severe disease in immunocompromised patients with mortality rate exceeding 50 per cent” Sumit said.
The outcome of this research has been published in Molecular Pharmaceutics (Impact Factor 4.7) titled Development of an inhaled controlled release voriconazole dry powder formulation for the treatment of respiratory fungal infection.
Following completion of his Endeavour Research Fellowship, Sumit went to Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany for six months on a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship to study the surface forces of the formulations he developed at Woolcock.
Sumit is currently working on another dry powder inhalable formulation of voriconazole in collaboration with Woolcock.
“The formulation has been made using one-step spray drying methodology and is currently been evaluated for its suitability for lung delivery” Sumit said. Sumit is currently back in India and is pursuing the final year of his PhD.
Ms Nonie Tuxen is currently undertaking her research with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Situated in the broader context of fast-paced economic development in India and the emergence of a global education market, her thesis explores the growth of the ‘new’ Indian middle class and their desire for overseas education.
Nonie’s thesis hypothesises that overseas education is a way for the rising urban Indian middle class to accumulate cultural capital and thereby denote belonging to the middle class, which enhances economic prospects and marriageability. However, she thesis also argues that the ‘new’ middle class is simultaneously restricted and regulated by Indian society according to the type of education, location and institutions they can access, thereby creating sub-classes within the wider middle class and limiting upward mobility.
By investigating relationships between class, mobility and transnational spaces of education, Nonie’s research project will contribute to the important – and often contentious – debate about the relationship between education and migration.
Previous academic work has explored experiences of international students in destination countries; however, little attention has been devoted to the multiple actors involved in facilitating student mobility in the country of origin. By interviewing education agents, aspiring students, returned students, parents, and industry representatives, Nonie’s research will take a more inclusive view to understanding the desirability of overseas education amongst the growing ‘new’ Indian middle class.
