GUWAHATI:
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has set up the Indian Council of Medical Research-Department of Health Research (ICMR-DHR) Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Device and Diagnostics Innovation and Commercialization to cater to the technological needs of rural India with a focus on healthcare delivery to the last-mile population.
Elaborating on the critical work underway ICMR Mission Secretariat at IIT Guwahati, IITG director Prof TG Sitharam said, “This Centre is working towards realizing the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that all IITs be involved in helping the nation in terms of achieving the goals of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ in the domain of healthcare technology development.”
Further, speaking about how this Centre could have a vital impact in rural healthcare, Sitharam added, “The centre is envisioned to excel in the frugal innovations related to biomedical devices and develop a unique academia-industry model for the product development related to the med-tech innovation in the country. The translational innovations proposed in the centre are expected to cater for the societal needs related to diagnostics and healthcare delivery, especially in rural India. The technologies innovated may also spur import substitution to materialize the dream of Make-in-India and Atmanirbhar Bharat.”
The Centre of Excellence is presently situated at the Centre of Nanotechnology and Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology of IIT Guwahati.
On the functioning of the Centre, Prof Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, head, Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology, IIT Guwahati, said, “Cutting-edge scientific inventions are the foundation of all modern-day technologies, which helps in improving the quality of life of a human being in a significant way. However, the benefits of such inventions are yet to reach the rural population of India. In the next few decades, especially keeping the post-pandemic scenario in perspective, the focus of healthcare innovation would be to develop frugal technologies to cater for the needs of the last mile population.”
This multidisciplinary initiative is also in line with the National Education Policy 2020 of the Union government wherein professors, researchers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and students from multiple departments join hands under a single umbrella to inculcate research and innovation in the domain of healthcare innovation. The initiative has been led by the Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Biosciences and Bioengineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and Design and Mathematics, among others.
