Sonam Rana updated Content Curator updated
Content Curator updated
New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bombay, Alumnus, Raj Nair has donated funds for the establishment of Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Lab at the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering (BSBE).
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), has been signed by the IIT Bombay alumnus Raj Nair, Subhasis Chaudhari, Director, IIT Bombay, and chief executive officer Latha Venkitachalam of its fellow alumni organisation IIT Bombay Alumni Association (IITBAA) in this regard.
Raj Nair is an IIT Bombay alumnus, who pursued BTech, metallurgical and material science engineering, in 1971. He has committed a substantial undisclosed amount to IIT Bombay for the purpose of setting up the biosafety level.
Nair has also offered to assist the researchers on the commercial aspects of the go-to-market strategy using his experience as a strategy consultant.
The proposed facility located at BSBE department is likely to facilitate the progression of breakthrough translational research from the laboratory stage to the market by manufacturing materials required for human clinical trials.
The researchers in BSBE and other departments on campus will use the biosafety laboratory facility to manufacture nanomaterials, tissue-engineered grafts, CAR-T constructs, drug nanoparticles, etc, for conducting clinical trials.
Nair’s aim for this initiative is to make the country and the institute become a place where the output of research will result in bold and impactful solutions for the masses facilitating a 10X improvement - better, cheaper, and faster - than the existing solutions anywhere across the world, so that thousands of patients suffering from difficult-to-treat diseases will be benefitted.
Read: IIT Bombay Inks MoU With Amway to Increase Research
BSL3 GMP Lab First-of-its-kind Facility at any of the IITs
Rohit Srivastava Head, and Himanshu Patel, Chair Professor of the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at IIT Bombay said that the BSL3 GMP lap is a first-of-its kind facility at any of the IITs in India, that will assist shorten the time it takes to conduct clinical trials for products from the BSBE department and rest of the institute.
Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay said that there was a crucial need for a GMP lab at the institute’s BSBE department. Thus, the faculties are extremely thankful to Nair for tending to help on this initiative. The establishment of this lab is a step towards the IIT Bombay's stated objective of being among the top 50 institutions in the world.
Expressing his delight, Nair said that he feels the best way to give back to his alma mater is to raise the level of ambition of the faculty and students dramatically by working towards achieving the goals that might seem hard to reach for ordinary people.
Further, Nair concluded by saying that the best way to give to the needy people would be to bring to them, highly affordable breakthrough medical solutions to save lakhs of people by facilitating translation research efforts.
Recently, an MoU was signed by the institute with its alumnus Sharad Sanghi from the B.Tech, Electrical Engineering 1989 batch, to establish the Centre of Ageing and Neurodegenerative Diseases at the IIT Bombay campus.
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