Indian Institute of Technology Ropar and Indian Institute of Technology Mandi have come together to introduce a joint initiative called ‘Bio-X Consortium’ in collaboration with Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER) Chandigarh to develop better cancer treatment techniques.
Although both the IITs are comparatively young, it houses well laid-out research programmes managed by highly experienced faculties in the field of biomedical life sciences. The new initiative aims to tackle the challenges faced in the field of medicine in terms of treatment of diseases including cancer, using the clinical expertise of PGIMER.
Director of IIT Ropar, SK Das and IIT Mandi Prof. TA Gonsalves were the brains behind this initiative. The seed to the idea dates back to February this year when both the directors met to discuss the need for the development of affordable health-care solutions in India. Faculty members from both the institutes attended the meeting.
The discussions led to the conclusion of involving clinical experts to guide the research work in order to meet the consortium goals. This led to the two institute’s collaboration with PGIMER and meetings were held to strengthen the trio’s participation in the consortium.
Both the IITs have already contributed INR 1 Crore each to start the selected 7-8 projects under the initiative. Dr. Tulika Srivastava of IIT Mandi elaborated, “Both the directors offered to support the collaborative projects under this consortium by providing seed funding of about 10% of the total project cost.”
Research activities are being conducted in major areas including biomedical instrumentation, biomechanics, imaging & diagnostic, low-cost MRI, cancer & laser therapy and biomedical nanotechnology.
Further, the faculties of both the IITs along with PGIMER were asked to launch the project so that additional funding can be applied for. In March this year, three project proposals were awarded with the INR 20 Lakh funding.
By far, a total of INR 48 Lakh of seed funding has been provided to the consortium for development of various projects including low-cost MRI. However, the consortium plans to apply for extramural funding within the next one year.
All three institutes have divided the roles & responsibilities amongst themselves and hold regular meetings to stay updated on each other’s course. Students and research scholars of the three institutes will also be part of the consortium’s research activities apart from the faculty members.
Assistant Prof. of Radio Diagnosis & Imaging PGIMER, Dr. Chirag Kamal Ahuja said that Bio-X consortium can help in installing less expensive built-in tools required for proper diseases diagnosis. He stated that PGIMER lacks facilities for proper medical imaging analysis and related tools for proper disease diagnosis which are very expensive making it difficult for the hospital to buy them.