Latest news with #Kaundinya
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
GlycoEra raises $130M, riding interest in protein degraders
This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter. A biotechnology startup developing drugs designed to eliminate troublesome proteins found outside of cells has raised $130 million to start its first clinical trial. The startup, GlycoEra, will use the Series B funds to generate initial clinical data for its lead program, an immune disease treatment dubbed GE8820. It intends to bring a second immune drug into human testing as well. GlycoEra views GE8820 as having the type of broad potential that could make it a 'pipeline in a product,' said company president and CEO Ganesh Kaundinya. The drug targets IgG4, a circulating antibody that can be protective against allergies, but malfunctions and attacks the body's own tissues in many autoimmune conditions, among them the skin disorder pemphigus and the kidney condition primary membranous nephropathy. GE8820 is a dual-acting drug that coaxes the body into destroying this defective IgG4. One part of the molecule binds to the antibody and drags it to the liver. The other part then latches onto a receptor that absorbs IgG4 into cells, where it's trashed by an internal protein-disposal system. According to GlycoEra, preclinical testing has shown the approach can remove malfunctioning IgG4 antibodies with the type of precision not seen with other approaches. By doing so, GE8820 may avoid the broadly immunosuppressive effects of other autoimmune medicines. It may also ease the 'burden on the healthcare system,' Kaundinya said. Patients typically 'get treated, they get better, they are fine, and then they come back to that relapse,' Kaundinya said. 'Our approach not only enables the patients to live better lives, it also overall contributes to better healthcare economics across the board.' GlycoEra has publicly disclosed three other programs behind GE8820, but hasn't specified which diseases they're targeting. The company could submit a request to begin trials for its second drug in 2026, according to its website. Novo Holdings led GlycoEra's Series B round, which involved the venture arms of Roche and Bristol Myers Squibb, Sofinnova Partners and several other firms. 'What really stood out with GlycoEra is that you had a use case here where, in autoimmune disease, there's limited competition, a high amount of medical need and the biological rationale is really strong,' said Novo Holdings partner Max Klement. 'As we see the autoimmune disease space evolve, precision medicine makers such as GlycoEra are going to come to the forefront.' GlycoEra is named after glycosylation, the process by which sugar chains are attached to proteins. The company is headquartered in Wädenswil, Switzerland and has a U.S. footprint in Newton, Massachusetts. It was spun out of Swiss biotech LimmaTech Biologics in January 2021, and raised approximately $49 million in Series A funding that November. The company's latest round is further evidence of continued interest in so-called protein degraders, which offer a way of getting to proteins traditional drugmaking methods can't reach. Research into protein degradation has taken off since the turn of the century, yielding an array of companies using different methods to destroy harmful proteins. Many of these companies are focused on protein targets inside of cells. GlycoEra is among those zeroing in on so-called extracellular proteins outside of cells or on their membranes. Fellow startups EpiBiologics and Lycia Therapeutics are as well. Sign in to access your portfolio
News18
27-05-2025
- General
- News18
What INSV Kaundinya Actually Stitches Together
Last Updated: The wooden sailing ship rekindles ancient India's bustling trade and cultural links with the ancient world to its east and west. Showcasing India's little-discussed but longstanding maritime tradition reached a (nautical) milestone with the launch of INSV Kaundinya at Karwar Naval Base in Karnataka last week. The re-creation of an ancient Indian 'stitched" ship as a joint venture between the Indian Navy and Ministry of Culture was discussed in a Firstpost article, ' Why recreating a 5th century stitched ship is as important as Chandrayaan ' (September 23, 2023) , but even the name has a story. Writers like Amitav Ghosh, William Dalrymple and Sanjeev Sanyal have dwelt on the Indian influence on the cultures of south-east Asia thanks mainly to sea-borne trade. But these are yet to become common knowledge in the way that, say, the life and times of Ashoka have in India. That is why the name Kaundinya is particularly apt for this stitched ship as he was the first known Indian who sailed to South-East Asia and ended up founding Cambodia's first Hindu kingdom. Kaundinya is thought to have hailed from India's east coast, probably somewhere in Ganjam district of Odisha or the adjoining Srikakulam district in Andhra, both of which were part of the ancient Kalinga kingdom and included the bustling Kalingapuram port. That is because 'Kaundinya" is a gotra common to Brahmins in the south-eastern Indian coastal region even today, indicating the ancient mariner's probable antecedents and reiterating Odisha's maritime legacy. The kingdom Kaundinya and Soma founded nearly 2,000 years ago is now referred to as Funan based on Chinese texts written over a millennium later, but contemporary Khmer sources cite names such as Shresthapura, Bhavapura, Vyadhapura and Aninditapura, pointing to its Indian/Hindu links. The Indian propensity to not chronicle anything till relatively recently has led to Chinese records dominating the discourse, hence Funan is the better known name. Incidentally, even Kaundinya's marriage to Soma is not the only such instance. It is said that an Indian princess Hwang-hok (Yellow Jade in Korean) of Ayodhya sailed away to marry Emperor Kim Suro of Gaya in Korea and became Empress Heo, not long after Kaundinya. Today, many Koreans claim descent from their 12 children. Curiously, the ancient burial mounds in Assam called moidam are amazingly similar to those of Korean royalty including that of Suro and Heo. Tales of the connections between ancient India and the cultures and kingdoms of south-east Asia and beyond have been far too persistent to be dismissed now as being without any basis. Academia (western-dominated as it has been) tended to firmly relegate such stories to the realms of mythology earlier, unwilling to even acknowledge that India had much of an international profile beyond the well-documented spread of Buddhism eastwards. India's Hinduism was sidelined. Thus, the story of the seafaring Kaundinya and his marriage to the Naga princess Soma nearly 2,000 years ago also never gained traction. That watershed event is remembered in Cambodia till today, but not many Indians visiting there are aware of it even if they do know that Hinduism was once the main religion in the region, indicating ancient links with India. Even a cursory research reveals details about profound cross-cultural connections, going beyond architecture and culture. Hinduism's cultural influence seen there, hark back to their earliest kingdoms, but now there is even DNA proof that 'proto-historic" South-East Asians had Indian lineage, indicating a wide intermingling between the peoples of India and that region – probably even predating Kaundinya's arrival. South-East Asian genealogies today have some Indian ancestry, but new studies on an ancient boy's skeleton in Cambodia have revealed a 40-50% South Asian/ Indian DNA. Radiocarbon testing of that ancient boy's bone dated it to the early period of Funan (the kingdom Kaundinya co-founded), showing that the Indian gene flow to Cambodia started 1,000 years earlier than the previously posited 12th to 14th century on the strength of genetic studies of current populations. The researchers also say they expect to find further traces of interactions with South Asia (India?) —corroborated by archaeological evidence—from about 4th century BCE. Paleogenomics does not make for racy reading, but its findings certainly add heft to the 'mythological" stories of connections between the Hindu kingdoms and cultures of ancient India and the populations of South-East Asia. Later in the first millennium CE the Indian connection becomes too evident to gloss over, such as the arrival in 731CE of a boy prince from Simhapura in Champa kingdom (now Vietnam) to ascend the Pallava throne in South India as Nandivarman II. That the INSV Kaundinya was launched on India's west coast is apt too. For millennia ancient Indian ships set sail from Khambat, Kutch and the Konkan coast to the west. The Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation had robust trade relations with the cultures of the Euphrates and Nile to its west, most of it conducted via the seas. Harappan seals found at Dilmun (now Bahrain) attest to the fact that it was an entrepot for goods from India like lapis lazuli, carnelian, pearls and ivory. And later, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions that 'cloths and precious stones, timbers and spices—particularly cinnamon" and even iron, steel, skins and muslin were transported from India mostly on Indian vessels and transhipped at Socotra Island or Cape Guardafui (off the Horn of Africa) from the 1st century CE onwards. Exploration of the huge Hoq Cave in Socotra has revealed many inscriptions (more like graffiti really) on its walls in ancient Brahmi script. Socotra is said to be derived from the Sanskrit name Dvipa Sukhadara (Island of Bliss) or its Greek contraction Dioskorida. But the fact that there were many Hindus engaged in this trade is also underlined by their reverence for a deity named Socotri Mata or Sikotar Maa, propitiated by the seafarers to protect them from being shipwrecked. Temples were dedicated to her in Gujarat and Sindh, not only as Sikotar Maa but also as Vahanvati, always depicted sitting in a boat. Coins of the Satavahana or Andhra dynasty (2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE) featuring sailing ships that look astonishingly like the INSV Kaundinya point to the importance of maritime trade for that huge Hindu empire straddling the peninsula. They maintained many bustling ports including Bharuch, Sopara and Kalyan on the Arabian Sea and Ghantasala and Machhilipatnam on east, trading with both South-East Asia and the expansive Roman Empire to the west. So, the good ship INSV Kaundinya stitches together the proto-history and history of maritime India, resurrecting not only the shipbuilding prowess of ancient Indians but also India's longstanding ties—commercial and cultural—down the millennia with the world. Later this year the wooden vessel will sail to Oman, retracing the route that other stitched Indian ships had made for centuries. May it always have 'fair winds and following seas" as the old nautical blessing goes! The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : indian navy Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: May 27, 2025, 12:18 IST News opinion Opinion | What INSV Kaundinya Actually Stitches Together
India.com
22-05-2025
- General
- India.com
Meet INS Kaundinya – Indian Navy's Masterpiece Ship Without Weapons And Engines
New Delhi: The Indian Navy on May 21 brought back a vessel to its fleet that once lost to time. The hand-made one-of-a-kind wooden ship, INSV Kaundinya, is no ordinary vessel. It is a tribute to Kaundinya – one of India's earliest known ocean voyager. As legend suggests, he was a merchant who discovered a kingdom 2,000 years ego in Southeast Asia. The story starts along Mekong Delta – today's southern Vietnam. The ship of Kaundinya that was carrying Indian merchants came under attack by pirates. He was forced to beach the ship; and when he did it, he was surrounded by a group led by a warrior queen – Soma. The incident witnessed a dramatic twist wherein Soma fell in love with the brave mariner and tied knots with him. They together established the kingdom of Funan, which is considered to be the first in Southeast Asia. Centuries later, the Navy is perhaps reviving Kaundinya's legacy. The newly manufactured ship is the masterpiece of the old craftsmanship. Built using 1,500-year-old techniques, the vessel has been made without using a single nail. The artisans from Kerala have stitched its wooden planks together with coconut fibre, natural resin and coir rope. Like the ship once did when Indian traders sailed across the Indian Ocean to travel to Mesopotamia, Bahrain and Oman, etec., its square cotton sails catch the wind. Talking to The Indian Express, the man behing the revival, Sanjeev Sanyal, who is a member in the prime minister's economic advisory council, described Kaundinya as the 'first Indian mariner we knew by name to have changed history'. Though Indian trade through sea routes is as old as the Bronze Age, the names of only a few voyages survive. Preserved in Southeast Asian sources, Kaundinya's name is an exception. Since there are no records of drawing of his ship, hence this vessel has been designed as per a 5th century painting found in the Ajanta caves that are one among the earliest visual clues of what ancient ships may have looked like. For additional inputs, foreign travellers' account and ancient scripture such as Yuktikalpataru have been relied upon. The vessel is full of symbolism. Its sails feature the sun and the mythical two-headed eagle once used by the Kadamba dynasty – Gandabherunda. A mythical creature – Simha Yali – adorn the ship's bow. It even carries a Harappan-style stone anchor. INSV Kaundinya has neither engine nor radar. Using square sails and steering oars, it runs only on wind power. The Navy will soon train a 15-member crew to master this lost art of sailing. Part of grand cultural project of shipbuilders from Goa-based Hodi Innovations, the Ministry of Culture and the Indian Navy, the ship is slated to sail to Oman in late 2025 to retrace the ancient trade routes, which were one used by Indian merchants. Speaking on the launching ceremony of the vessel, Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat termed it a 'resurgence of India's maritime glory'. India, with this ship, is not trying to revive only a boat, it is reviving a forgotten sea-borne legacy, a skill and a story.
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First Post
22-05-2025
- General
- First Post
INSV Kaundinya: Indian Navy's ‘stitched ship' inspired by 5th century Ajanta painting
The Indian Navy on Wednesday inducted INSV Kaundinya, a stitched sail ship based on a fifth-century ship showcased in a painting in the Ajanta Caves. Built using traditional stitching techniques, the vessel is named after an ancient Indian mariner whose love story led to the birth of a kingdom read more The Indian Navy has inducted a 'stitched sail ship', named Indian Naval Sailing Vessel (INSV) Kaundinya, at a ceremony held at the Naval Base in Karnataka's Karwar. The vessel is modelled on a 5th-century ship showcased in a painting in the Ajanta Caves. The ship is set for a historic transoceanic voyage, traversing the ancient trade route from Gujarat to Oman, according to the Indian Navy. The vessel, with a 15-member crew of the Indian Navy on board, will embark on the journey later this year. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Here's everything to know about the stitched ship. Features of INSV Kaundinya INSV Kaundinya, the stitched ship, boasts square sails and steering oars, which are 'entirely alien to modern-day ships', as per the Indian Navy. These oars control the steering of the ship, which is reportedly equipped with a main mast, mizzen mast and bowsprit mast. INSV Kaundinya is adorned with culturally significant features. 'Her [the ship's] sails display motifs of the Gandabherunda and the Sun, her bow bears a sculpted Simha Yali, and a symbolic Harappan style stone anchor adorns her deck, each element evoking the rich maritime traditions of ancient India,' the Ministry of Defence said in a statement. The vessel was built using traditional stitching techniques by a team of skilled artisans from Kerala, led by master shipwright Babu Sankaran. 'Over several months, the team painstakingly stitched wooden planks on the ship's hull using coir rope, coconut fibre and natural resin,' the ministry's statement read. Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, told Indian Express that the ship has 'trailing oars, square sails and a flexible hull. It does not have rudders. In modern sailing, usually, triangular sails are used. There are some advantages, but many disadvantages, because you have to basically sail with the wind. So, it is important to recognise that when we attempt to sail it, we will have to relearn the art of sailing with square sails.' The project, which is aimed at exhibiting India's maritime heritage, is being implemented through a tripartite agreement between the Indian Navy, the Ministry of Culture and Goa-based shipbuilding company Hodi Innovations (OPC) Private Ltd. The Indian Navy monitored the ship's design, technical validation, and construction process. 'With no surviving blueprints of such vessels, the design had to be inferred from iconographic sources. The Navy collaborated with the shipbuilder to recreate the hull form and traditional rigging, and ensured that the design was validated through hydrodynamic model testing at the Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras, and internal technical assessment,' the defence ministry said in the statement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD INSV Kaundinya's keel laying happened in September 2023, and it was launched in February in Goa. The formal induction of INSV Kaundinya into the Indian Navy is historical and significant for India's maritime heritage. 'This is not just the launch of a vessel—it is the launch of heritage. A symbolic act that echoes across centuries, marking the resurgence of India's maritime legacy and reaffirming our deep and enduring ties with the Indian Ocean world,' Union Minister of Culture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who was the chief guest at the induction ceremony on Wednesday (May 21), wrote on X. A historic moment for Bharat and our civilisational pride. Presided over the induction ceremony of the Ancient Stitched Ship INSV Kaundinya at Karwar Naval Base today—an extraordinary recreation of a 5th-century vessel, inspired by Ajanta murals and handcrafted by Kerala's… — Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (@gssjodhpur) May 21, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How INSV Kaundinya got its name INSV Kaundinya is named after a legendary Indian mariner who sailed across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia. More than 2000 years ago, the Indian merchant Kaundinya reached the Mekong Delta (southern Vietnam ), along with a crew of Indians, during his sailing venture. The Indian merchant vessel on which they were aboard was attacked by pirates, who were defeated by Kaundinya. However, the vessel was damaged and had to be beached for repairs, as per an Indian Express report. A local clan, led by warrior queen Soma, encircled the Indian crew, who were outnumbered. Legend has it that a confrontation ensued between them. However, the conflict did not last long as Soma, belonging to the Naga clan, fell in love with Kaundinya and proposed marriage. The couple later went on to establish the royal dynasty of Funan. Kaundinya and Soma established the Funan dynasty. Wikimedia Commons Speaking to Indian Express, Sanyal said, 'Kaundinya and Soma set up a dynasty that went on to form the first Indianised Kingdom in what is now Cambodia/South Vietnam. This is corroborated by Chinese sources. All the future dynasties of the Khmer and Chams of Vietnam… to this day… trace their lineage to this marriage.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
Hindustan Times
22-05-2025
- Hindustan Times
Punjab: High court grants bail to drug racket kingpin Jagdish Bhola
Indian Navy's Kaundinya, a traditional stitched wooden vessel built using ancient shipbuilding techniques, was inducted in Karwar. Constructed by Hodi Innovations, the ship will soon embark on a transoceanic voyage, reviving India's maritime heritage.
