Pandemic pushes IIT, AIIMS to join hands for drug designing, lab-on-a-chip devices

NEW DELHI: In a rare instance of engineering and

medical scholars

teaming up to boost research in healthcare, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dhanbad and AIIMS Deoghar in Jharkhand have signed a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to undertake joint research on drug designing and lab-on-a-chip devices that can conduct several analyses usually done in a laboratory.


The move comes at a time when Covid-19 outbreak has put the focus on R&D in healthcare as a priority for educational institutes in many countries.

The MoU between the two institutes signed on November 16 stated that the initiative will facilitate exchange on health sciences among the staff and joint programmes on biotechnology, biophysics, computer science engineering will be developed.

“We are hiring new faculty for this initiative. The focus of this MoU between AIIMS and IIT will be drug designing and lab-on-a-chip devices that can handle chemical analysis. Teaching and exchange of scientific researchers will also be a part of it,” said Rajiv Shekhar, director, IIT-Dhanbad.

Shekhar said many other IITs are taking similar initiatives to collaborate on diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics and using bio-pharma to tackle the

pandemic

.

Godda MP Nishikant Dubey, a member of the governing council and board of AIIMS Deoghar, said that such MoUs will help unite scholars to find cheap and affordable healthcare solutions to tackle future pandemics. “Recently, IIIT Bhagalpur developed an X-Ray

device

to track Covid-19 symptoms. Our institute is just a year-old and such an MoU will add impetus to young medicos in rural hinterland to actively undertake research to handle and treat deadly diseases with a hands-on approach,” said Dubey.

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