Bengaluru, Apr 5 (IANS): Serial entrepreneur Ashok Soota on Sunday announced Rs 200 crore funding to set up Skan medical research trust here for ageing and neurological disorders.

"The not-for-profit trust will conduct research with partners and in-house. For neurological research, the trust has tied up with the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) at the premier Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in the city," said Soota in a statement here.

Soota, 78, is the co-founder of Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd and over 2 decades ago, co-founded software major MindTree after serving as an executive in global IT major Wipro.

Of the Rs 200-crore fund, Rs 100 crore will be for partners like CBR, St John's Hospital and state-run Nimhans in the city and IIT at Roorkee in Uttarakhand.

As part of a consortium, CBR's first research project will be on Parkinson's disease, a disorder of the central nervous system that affects movement.

Soota has also agreed to fund the centre for research in ageing and geriatrics at St John's geriatrics centre in its hospital campus.

"In ageing, the research will be in community-based set-up and in neurological research, the plan will be to foray into areas like bipolar disorders, strokes and cerebrovascular disorders," he said.

Admitting that it would take 10 years to build a centre for ageing and neurological research, he said the research will include searching for kinder, gentler therapies.

"Delaying onset and slowing the progression of the disease and providing the affected a better quality of life even as they live with the illness," added Soota.