President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam has called for the creation of a "science cadre" in the country to ensure job security for the PhDs and post-graduates in various science disciplines. He also called for a "National Healthcare Grid" e-linking all medical research institutions, pharmaceutical R&D centres of the country.

Delivering the inaugural address at "India R&D 2005 - The world's knowledge hub of future" conference organized by FICCI, ministry of science and technology and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) here yesterday, the President advocated mission mode approaches to fulfill India's aspirations on R&D front. Development of quality human resources through appropriate policy intervention was suggested. The President emphasized the need for adequate R&D inputs in developing HIV / AIDS vaccines.

"We should work for the creation of a science cadre, with well defined growth path and attractive salaries. There should be a minimum annual intake of about 400 MSc and 200 PhDs with assured career growth in the organisations such as ISRO, DRDO, Atomic Energy, CSIR, DST and the universities. Similarly, private sector industries in pharma, IT, oil and natural gas, power, transportation, agriculture should be able to attract additional four hundred MSc., and two hundred PhDs every year for carrying out research on frontier areas of science and technology," Dr Kalam said.

Nanotechnology can find application in spotting cancer earlier than it can be done now. It can also enable highlighting tiny clusters of cancer cells and help the doctors detect whether cancer has spread or shrinking in response to treatment without the need for surgery. The third application could be to send the drugs encased in packages small enough to slip through cancer cell walls, kill tumour without damaging healthy cells thus reducing the side effects of treatment. All these areas are promising applications and there is a need for the Oncologists, pharmacologists, nanoscience and technologists to work together and make such drug and drug delivery system through nano-technology a reality in a time bound manner, he added.

The President's proposal for National Healthcare Grid involved inter-connecting of the Health Care institutions of Government, Corporate and Super specialty hospitals, research institutions, educational institutions and ultimately, Pharma R & D institutions. Kapil Sibal, Minister S&T, Prof V S Ramamurthy, Secretary DST, Dr Ajay Dua, Secretary, DIPP, Onkar S. Kanwar, President, FICCI, Dr R A Mashelkar, Director General, CSIR and Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI also spoke during the function.

The two-day conference has delegates from over a dozen countries. There are special plenary sessions on drugs and pharmaceuticals.