India must prepare now to tackle future pandemics: Niti Aayog's VK Paul

Niti Aayog member Dr V K Paul on Saturday laid down a road map for IMTECH scientists here, exhorting them to pursue research on priority pathogens that have the potential to cause future pandemics.

Dr Paul said, "We prepare for war when we are not at war, and a lot of work for tackling future pandemics should be done now in microbial labs like IMTECH. Governance, surveillance, research and partnership are the cornerstones of future pandemic strategy."  Developing countermeasures up to Phase II clinical trial, working in partnership with the industry, creating efficient supply chains and demonstrating capabilities and speed should be the key for India for any pandemic mitigation strategy, he said.

 

CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh, on Saturday, celebrated its 42nd foundation day.

Several events were organised on the occasion, including the foundation day lecture on "Future Pandemic Preparedness: What we must do now", delivered by Dr Paul, who is leading the health, nutrition and education verticals at NITI Aayog.

Dr Paul mentioned that the entire efforts of the central government for mitigating challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic were driven by science and evidence, with the government, nation and society being stakeholders of the action plan.

He appreciated IMTECH's efforts during the pandemic for undertaking RT-PCR testing for detection and surveillance, developing a Covid-19 subunit protein-based vaccine and initiating antiviral screening against SARS-CoV-2.

According to an IMTECH statement, for future pandemic preparedness, he stressed that scientists need to be prepared well in advance with strategies and countermeasures which can be made available within the first 100 days of the outbreak.

Dr Sanjeev Khosla, Director, CSIR-IMTECH, while speaking on the occasion, said, "Innovating with microbes and impacting lives has been the guiding force for the scientists and researchers of IMTECH family over the last four decades."  "The 42nd foundation day stands as a testimony to IMTECH's continued pursuit of excellence in microbial sciences for over four decades, with a vision of propelling India into the future with innovation at the forefront," Khosla said.

On the occasion, he apprised the gathering regarding the ongoing projects in CSIR-IMTECH on bioremediation, natural farming, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), neurodegenerative disease & other collaborations with several industries.

CSIR-IMTECH is a national centre for excellence in microbial sciences and was established in 1984. IMTECH's vision and mission are to create a translational ecosystem strengthened by fundamental discoveries and to address unmet healthcare and industrial needs with state-of-the-art processes and platforms, respectively.