Mumbai Feb 24 PTI A Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer CLASS a payload on-board Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter has detected solar proton events which significantly increase the radiation exposure to humans in space the Indian Space Research Organisation has said The instrument on January 18 also recorded coronal mass ejections CMEs a powerful stream of ionised material and magnetic fields which reach the Earth a few days later leading to geomagnetic storms and lighting up the polar sky with auroras the ISRO said on Wednesday Such multi-point observations help us understand the propagation and its impact on different planetary systems it said When the sun is active spectacular eruptions called solar flares occur that sometimes also spew out energetic particles called solar proton events or SPEs into interplanetary space Most of these are high energy protons that impact space systems and significantly increase radiation exposure to humans in space They can cause ionisation on large scales in the earths middle atmosphere the space agency said Many intense solar flares are accompanied by CMEs a powerful stream of ionised material and magnetic fields which reach the earth a few days later leading to geomagnetic storms and lighting up the polar sky with auroras Solar flares are classified according to their strength The smallest ones are A-class followed by B C M and X Each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output This means that an M class flare is 10 times more intense than C-class flare and 100 times intense than B-class flare the ISRO said Within each letter class there is a finer scale from 1 to 9 - a M2 flare is twice the strength of M1 flare Recently there were two M-class solar flares One flare M55 spewed out energetic particles into interplanetary space and the other flare M15 was accompanied by a CME the space agency said The SPE event was seen by NASAs Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite GOES orbiting around the Earth However the CME event was not detected by GOES Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer CLASS on-board Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter detected SPE due to an M55 class solar flare that occurred on January 20 2022 the ISRO said The CLASS instrument also detected a CME event as it passed through the moon due to an M15 class solar flare that occurred on January 18 it added The CME travels at a speed of about 1000 kms and it takes about two-three days to reach the Earth The signature of this event is missed by the GOES satellite as the earths magnetic field provides shielding from such events However the event was recorded by Chandrayaan-2 the ISRO said The CLASS payload on Chandrayaan-2 saw both the SPE and CME events pass by from two intense flares on the Sun it added Planned to land on the moons south pole Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22 2019 However the lander Vikram hard-landed on September 7 2019 crashing Indias dream to become the first nation to successfully land on the lunar surface in its maiden attempt The ISRO had then said the mission achieved 98 per cent success as the orbiter continues to share data with the ground station PTI PR RSY GK GK GK

Bengaluru Nov 18 PTI Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science IISc along with collaborators have identified potential blood-based biomarkers to predict disease progression and survival times in those with late-stage brain tumours The team included researchers from the Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering BSSE at IISc the Mazumdar Shaw Centre for Translational Research and Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation the Bengaluru-based IISc said in a statement on Thursday They analysed tumour and blood samples from individuals with gliomas tumours that occur in the brain to identify surface proteins on immune cells in the blood whose levels were closely linked to tumour progression This study was published in journal OncoImmunology Late-stage gliomas such as grade three and grade four gliomas are associated with a poor prognosis the tumour is harder to treat and the patient is likely to have a low chance of survival Our pilot study suggests that we can potentially use two blood-based biomarkers present on immune cells to identify patients who might not perform well with particular treatment strategies said Siddharth Jhunjhunwala Assistant Professor in BSSE and senior author of the study Such a blood-based testing methodology could help clinicians better understand disease progression and choose a more effective treatment regimen Conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy are often ineffective in treating these tumours according to the statementThis has prompted a shift to newer techniques like immunotherapy which involves provoking our own immune system to attack the tumour cells However attempts to use some of the standard immunotherapies to treat gliomas have met with limited success explained Jhunjhunwala This led to a specific scientific gap that we were trying to address which is to understand the immune profile in the tumour microenvironment he said The team collected blood and tumour samples from patients with grade three and grade four gliomas and compared the numbers of specific immune cells called monocytes and neutrophils in these samples Because these are biosamples they need to be preserved and processed very well without loss of cell viability said Jayashree V Raghavan PhD student at BSSE and first author of the study We had to split up methodology between two institutes here and at the lab at the Mazumdar Shaw Foundation They would do all the processing and fixation to retain the viability of the cells and then we would do the characterisation and immunostaining here The team also looked for differences in the composition of surface proteins on these cells across the two grades of tumours They found that a certain type of monocytes the M2 monocytes were present in larger numbers in the samples from grade four tumours Previous studies have shown that high numbers of M2 monocytes are associated with a suppression of immune responses and this finding could therefore help develop new treatment strategies Future studies could focus on developing therapies that reduce the numbers of M2 monocytes in the tumour microenvironment or alter their functionality said Jhunjhunwala The researchers also found that levels of two surface proteins on neutrophils and monocytes CD86 and CD63 were closely related in both the blood and tumour samples The presence of high levels of these proteins on immune cells in other tumours has previously been associated with poor prognosis or low chances of survival Jhunjhunwala points out What our study showed is that you do not need to look at these markers only in the tumours you might be able to look at these just from the blood and the clinician can make an assessment Jhunjhunwala cautioned however that further testing and validation on a larger scale is necessary before this can be taken from the lab to the clinic We would like to expand our cohort and test for only these two markers now in individuals with stage three and stage four brain tumours and follow their survival times PTI RS SS SS